


Unabated Will

by kurow



Series: Unblemished Memory [2]
Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types
Genre: M/M, Post-Tresspasser
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-05-18
Updated: 2017-07-18
Packaged: 2018-06-09 07:30:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 15
Words: 27,154
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6895636
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kurow/pseuds/kurow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A sequel to Unblemished Memory, set after the events of the Trespasser DLC.</p><p>What began as an investigation into rumors of slavers targeting Clan Lavellan leads to much more than Fenris could have imagined. A secretive organization has approached Varania, assassins are targeting Dorian, and slaves are disappearing as if by magic. Things in Tevinter are about to change, for better or for worse.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Opening the Way

**Author's Note:**

> Just to reiterate: Please make sure you've read [Unblemished Memory](http://archiveofourown.org/works/5441936/chapters/12576407) first, or else I think you'll be a bit confused!

Dorian fell back onto the gaudy Orlesian bed with a world-weary sigh.

 

Although he was glad that the mess at the Winter Palace was over, he knew that returning to Tevinter meant having to deal with all the red tape and complications surrounding his father’s death, not to mention his recent promotion in rank – a thought that made his stomach tie itself into knots – plus handling any lingering affairs at the Alexius estate besides. _And when did I become so responsible anyway?_ He sat up, chewing agitatedly at the inside of his lip and glaring at his luggage where it sat ready as if it were to blame for everything that had happened.

 

The sound of a cautious knock at the door pulled him from his thoughts.

 

“Just a moment,” he called. He stood and reluctantly headed across the room. When he pulled the door open, Lavellan stood on the other side.

 

“Dorian,” she said, before glancing warily in both directions down the hallway. “I need to speak with you privately.”

 

Dorian stepped aside and held the door open for her. “Of course. Come in,” he replied.

 

She crossed the room and stood near the window with her one remaining arm held at the small of her back, fist clenched. She waited, tense, until she heard the sound of the door clicking shut.

 

“I’ve received some information,” she explained, turning around to face him, “That I believe is of personal importance to both of us.”

 

Dorian watched as she dropped her hand to her side, clenching and unclenching her fist. She took a breath before continuing, “I realize that I am no longer in any position to ask this of you, and I’m certain you have a great deal of work to do now…”

 

“Whether or not you are the Inquisitor, you are still my closest friend,” Dorian said reassuringly.

 

Lavellan sighed. “I sent Fenris to the Free Marches some time ago to follow up on rumors of Tevinter slavers targeting Dalish clans. Specifically, my own clan.” She swallowed hard around the tightness in her throat. “This morning I received a report from an Inquisition scout confirming that several members of my clan were captured some time ago, but I have not heard anything from Fenris.”

 

Dorian felt as if the bottom had dropped out of his stomach. “You don’t think he’s been…” He trailed off, as if saying the words might make them true.

 

“I don’t know,” Lavellan replied, shaking her head, “But I believe he may need help. Dorian, if you could…”

 

“Do you have any leads?” Dorian asked without another thought, barely able to choke down the franticness that was rising within him.

 

Lavellan’s shoulders slumped. “Only one. I have reports that a few elves who were taken from the Wycome Alienage were freed from slavers heading West across the Free Marches and sent to Kirkwall by an elf matching Fenris’s description. I would start there.”

 

“Well,” Dorian said, a poor excuse for good spirits stretched thin over the tenseness in his voice, “I _did_ promise Merrill that I would visit her soon.”

 

-

 

The quick cadence of hurried footsteps came rushing from a passage that intersected the one where Fenris hid, perched in the shadows, watchful over the room below where six of the slavers slept around a blazing fire while two more stood guard. He froze.

 

The sound – it was soft, the slapping of skin against stone, without the metallic clanking of armour or the heavy thud of leather soles. Fenris spun around to make sure, not allowing himself to relax when he saw the outline of pointed ears in the dim light until he turned back – the guards were still complaining in hushed tones about the blisters on their feet – and back again once more.

 

As Fenris’s eyes adjusted to the shift in light, he could make out the singed strands of hair that curled wildly from the First of Clan Lavellan’s long braid from where a fire spell had caught it as he’d fled the slavers the day before. The light from the room below reflected faintly on his face, shadows tracing his vallaslin where it angled downwards towards his mouth, illuminating his wide eyes and raised brows as his lips formed the words, _come here_.

 

Fenris tried to forgive all the noise the boy was making, blaming it on what must have been teenage naivety, but he wasn’t sure how much longer he could suffer this blundering fool. He contemplated taking the boy’s long, impractical braid and strangling him with it as he reluctantly crept down the hall, as silently as possible.

 

Lavellan’s First – Fenris couldn’t remember his name, and couldn’t be bothered to ask it again – looked as if he might burst with excitement at any moment, reaching without thinking to grab Fenris’s hand between his own. Fenris snapped his hand back, but the boy was completely undaunted, simply giving him a self-satisfied grin.

 

“I’ve found our way out of here,” he whispered proudly, just a little louder than necessary.

 

Fenris wrinkled his nose. “Are you _trying_ to alert the guards?” he hissed, just barely a breath. “Because you seem awfully intent on doing just that.”

 

“I’ll be quieter if you follow me,” Lavellan’s First said conspiratorially.

 

“This is not a game,” Fenris scolded, but the boy had already turned and headed off into the dark. Fully aware that he had little choice, Fenris followed after.

 

This slaver den had been built into a system of preexisting caverns leading beneath the hills in a twisting series of short passageways that didn't quite seem like natural caves. Fenris had found the section they were now in hidden behind a crude wooden barricade, and it was clearly falling into decades, or perhaps even centuries, of disuse. The deeper they went, the more the walls had crumbled in on themselves, the air stale and undisturbed by any living things but the two elves who now crept through it.

 

“It’s through here,” the boy whispered back over his shoulder, gesturing to a partially collapsed branch off of the main path. They clambered atop the rubble, the ceiling just barely tall enough to keep them from having to stoop down.

 

They hadn’t gone very far when the First stopped, a small flame flickering to life in the palm of his hand, the light dancing off of an all too familiar object half-buried in rubble, tilted back against a broken pillar.

 

Fenris could kill him.

 

“It’s an eluvian,” the boy explained.

 

“I know what it is,” Fenris ground out. “But as I am certain you have noticed, it is inactive, and you have wasted our time.”

 

The boy frowned. “But Keeper Deshanna said the Inquisition used eluvians,” he said insistently. “I thought…”

 

As he trailed off, Fenris thought he felt a shift in the air. He spun around and reached for his sword as if entirely on instinct, his muscles tense, breath stilled.

 

An indignant huff of laughter echoed off the ruined walls as one of the slavers slipped from behind a pillar not far behind them, dressed in dark leathers, stalking carefully forwards with daggers poised. “Well, don’t you look dangerous,” he said, meeting Fenris’s eyes with a sickening grin. “Must be my lucky day. I heard you knife-ears shuffling around in here, but I wasn’t expecting to find anything so… valuable.”

 

“Shut your mouth,” Fenris said with a growl. He grit his teeth, clenched his fists, and forced his markings to burst into light. An odd wave of pressure pushed out through the air from somewhere behind him, rushing in like water filling Fenris’s ears, but he had no time to pay it any mind.

 

The slaver started, drawing back in shock, eyes flitting frantically between Fenris and the space behind him. Fenris took the moment to rush forward and plunge his hand into the man’s chest, sending his body crumpling to his knees with blood spilling from between his cracked lips. As the slaver writhed in agony, Fenris yanked his arm back, frowning at the way his markings flickered but allowing them to go out anyway.

 

The slaver fell onto his face, dead.

 

“ _Fasta vass_ ,” Fenris spat as he took a ragged breath. He turned to face the First again, a thousand rebukes and insults ready – _See where your foolishness has lead us?_ – but every one died on his lips. The surface of the eluvian rippled blue from above the debris, a pale and hazy glow pouring out over the collapsed room, silhouettes of trees bursting with flowers along their twisting branches visible just beyond it.

 

“You… You opened it,” Lavellan’s First whispered, stunned, just barely audible in the silence.

 

The two stood silently for some time as if rooted to the spot, simply staring past the surface that was no longer simply glass to the stone path that stretched out beyond it, before the boy finally found his voice and spoke again.

 

“We can escape through here.”

 

Fenris narrowed his eyes. “We don’t even know where this leads,” he protested, but it was weak and he knew it. He was used to dispatching slavers, but that was always small, unorganized groups leading a few captives at a time on foot – nothing like this well-outfitted compliment systematically ferrying dozens down the Minanter River with startling efficiency. He had been able to free frustratingly few of the captives in all the time he had been trailing them, and then only when they stopped at outposts and he was able to sneak one or two away.

 

There was simply no way to take on all of them while ensuring the safety of Clan Lavellan. Stealth was their best bet, but it was also certainly not one of Fenris’s strengths. His success at avoiding Danarius’s hunters for so many years had come mostly from luck and circumstance – a fact Fenris knew well. He wished that he could have had the foresight before coming north to ask Lavellan to send a spy along with him, but it was useless to think about now. They were running out of time.

 

“It’s too risky to escape out the front. You said so yourself,” the First countered, pulling him from his thoughts. “And how long do you think before they notice that he’s gone?” he added with a glance at the guard’s corpse, giving the smallest shudder at the gore splattered around it.

 

Fenris huffed out a breath and wrinkled his nose as he gave in. “We release them tonight. The guards will rotate shifts within the next hour, which will give us some time. We will have to work quickly,” he said with finality, and gave a pointed look at the First’s face, “and _silently_.”

 

“Yes, yes, I get it already,” the First shot back petulantly, though Fenris was relieved to note he was keeping his voice much quieter than before.

 

Fenris glanced again at the mirror, his mouth twisting with his suspicion. “I don’t like this,” he said, as if that mattered. “We’ll bring them into the mirror, but you and I will scout ahead in case of danger.”

 

The First opened his mouth to protest, but Fenris pinned him with a venomous glare. He conceded, shutting his mouth and taking a deep breath. “But what if we’re followed again?” he said instead, taking another wary look at the dead guard. “What if they follow us into the eluvian?”

 

“I suppose we’ll handle that matter should the need arise,” Fenris said vaguely, and headed back out of the ruined passage.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wasn't intending to start posting this fic until I had a lot more of it done, but I also have no restraint, so here we are. Updates will not be as frequent as they were for the first story, but I'll do my best to not go longer than a week between chapters!


	2. The Crossroads

When the guard shift rotated, only two men remained outside the pens that held the elves kidnapped from Clan Lavellan. One guard strode up and down before the barred cells looking impossibly bored, staring down at his feet and kicking at the loose earth on the cave floor as he walked, while the other sat dozing in a dilapidated wooden chair at the end of the row. Fenris knew the entrance to the cave would be well fortified, just as they had been at every stop along the way, but the slavers were not expecting an escape from within.

 

Fenris raised his hand in signal to Clan Lavellan’s First, who replied with an overconfident smile before taking a deep breath, focusing his magic as best he could with no staff to aid him, and cast a shroud of sleep over the pacing guard. The man wavered on his feet before collapsing against the wall to his right and slipping down to the floor in a limp pile. The other man remained motionless. The First gave Fenris a nod, and the two slipped from the shadows and rushed as silently as they could into the room.

 

By Fenris’s best guess, they had less than five minutes.

 

As they approached the pens, a little girl from Clan Lavellan saw her First and gave a broad open-mouthed grin, looking like she was about to cry out in joy before a man with cropped hair and dark vallaslin pressed a hand over the child’s mouth to keep her quiet. From beside those two, one of the Wycome Alienage elves who had been mixed in with the Dalish waved a hand to get their attention. She gestured at the locks on the cage, and then triumphantly held up one bent lockpick.

 

The door was slowly pushed open, every one of them flinching at the creaking of the heavy hinges. They began to file out quickly, following the First into the dark hall leading to the barricade that they would slip past, into the ruined passages.

 

Fenris waited until the last elf from the pens had disappeared into the darkness, and gave another quick glance over his shoulder, cursing at the way the hair he’d been neglecting to cut for just a little too long got in his eyes from the momentum. As he hurriedly stuffed the offending locks of hair behind his ears, he could see that the spell was wearing off; the guard was beginning to stir where he lay on the floor.

 

They were out of time.

 

It was not a moment after Fenris made it past the barricade that the sounds of commotion began stirring in the cave. Instincts never quite lost from his time on the run kicked in, and he broke into a sprint, light on his feet from years of practice in moving as silently as possible. Fenris caught up with the others as the last of them were scrambling over the rubble into the collapsed passage that held the eluvian. He turned back – watching the path behind, listening to the echoing shouts of the slavers in the outer cave – as the First ushered the rest through the mirror.

 

“Come on!” the boy called, loud enough that Fenris jumped, cursing under his breath as he turned to see the boy give a wave before passing through the eluvian.

 

Fenris followed, bracing himself against the odd sensation of the surface of the mirror rippling around him as he pushed through. The instant he stumbled out on the other side he felt that rush of pressure swell inside his ears again, and he spun around to see the eluvian going dull before his eyes, reflecting back the lyrium that snaked its way down his cheekbones starkly against its brassy surface.

 

The Crossroads stretched out before them, gossamer wisps of colour twisting through the air like spider silk. A single stone path lead away from the eluvian at a steady incline before making a sharp turn, the rest of it obscured by rocky cliffs covered in ancient tress with branches that curved upward, adorned with elegant pink flowers as big as saucers. Lavellan’s First gave a relieved sigh that trailed off into proud laughter, the tension falling from his shoulders.

 

One of the elves from his clan, a middle aged women with a look of tired wisdom about her, reached out towards him. Her hand hovered above his arm as if she worried that he was an illusion, and she said, “Haelvhrin, da’len… are we safe now?”

 

The First of Clan Lavellan – _Haelvhrin_ , Fenris remembered now – beamed back at her. “Of course we’re sa—”

 

“ _Vishante kaffas_ ,” Fenris interrupted, narrowing his eyes at Haelvhrin’s fading smile. “We do not know that yet,” he said sternly, before meeting the Dalish woman’s gaze. “You must be on your guard. This place is unknown. We are likely still in danger.”

 

Haelvhrin pressed his lips into a thin line. The woman nodded seriously at Fenris. “Is there a plan?” she asked. “Do you know where this leads?”

 

Fenris opened his mouth to reply but Haelvhrin quickly spoke over him. “Nevra, can you stay here and look out for the others? I think you’ll be safe right here, at least.” He licked his fingertips and brushed them over the singed edges of his long braid, pressing the stray hairs back into place for only a moment before they sprang up into haphazard curls again. “Fenris and I are going to scout ahead.”

 

Fenris wrinkled his nose and let out a heavy breath, but nodded in assent anyway.

 

-

 

The path ended not far from where they had entered. As they rounded the curve, it angled back down again, becoming precariously thin in the open air for a short stretch before widening out again in front of a second eluvian. Haelvhrin walked nimbly across, making a show of it, and Fenris rolled his eyes before following with caution.

 

The eluvian before them stood unlocked, but hardly any light radiated from its surface. As they approached, shapes became clearer in the haze – rows of odd buildings with cusped roofs stretching out endlessly in the darkness.

 

“ _Mythal’enaste_ ,” Haelvhrin breathed, “It’s a city.”

 

“It _looks like_ a city,” Fenris corrected, distrust heavy in his voice.

 

“What if the eluvian closes behind you again, the way the other one did?”

 

_It will not_ , a voice pressed incessantly at the back of Fenris’s mind, and he could not tell if it came from within or without, but either way it left a bad taste in his mouth, a constricting feeling in his throat. He clenched his fists, grinding his teeth as his mouth twisted into a frown.

 

“What choice do we have?” he ground out at last, the words forced and thin. “I will not simply wait here.”

 

-

 

The city was not as vast as it had looked from the other side of the eluvian, though the large buildings – or perhaps they were only rock – stretched out far before them, built of weathered stone in a uniform shade of sickly pale ivory. _About the size of Hightown_ , Fenris thought, except for the fact that the same vaulted structures that surrounded them on the ground were hanging down from above as well, blocking out the light.

 

“Like teeth,” Haelvhrin whispered with a shudder, twisting his braid between his hands.

 

Some invisible force seemed to be pulling Fenris down one of the wide avenues that cut between the buildings, and he allowed himself to follow the instinct warily, trying to ignore the rational part of himself that was screaming that this might be a trap.

 

“It seems uninhabited,” Fenris said carefully, eyes scanning everywhere around him, looking for motion, or inconsistencies in the perfectly even structures, or… _anything_.

 

“Thank the Creators for that,” Haelvhrin breathed as he walked at Fenris’s side.

 

A breeze whipped past, much more cold and stinging than the usual balmy air of the Crossroads, sending a stabbing chill along the lyrium branded into Fenris’s skin. He turned his head away to shield his face from the wind, and that was when he saw it. At the end of a long and narrow alley stood another eluvian, its unusual twisting form in sharp contrast to the uniformity that surrounded it. Fenris froze in his tracks.

 

“No,” he said to no one in particular, “That cannot be…”

 

Before he had even realized he had moved, he was running at top speed towards that small, odd eluvian.

 

“Cannot be what?” Haelvhrin cried out from somewhere behind him. “Fenris, wait!”

 

The boy’s voice echoed off the pale stone that surrounded them, reaching Fenris’s ears as if nothing more than a dream as he drew closer to the eluvian. He skidded to a halt before its clouded surface.

 

Inactive.

 

His mind raced, blocking out all around him. It had to work. He had no other choice. With a deep breath, he bit the inside of his lip hard to prepare himself, but his brands came blazing to life at hardly a thought, more easily than he could ever remember. A wave a pressure rushed into his ears like water, and the eluvian’s surface flashed into a rippling blue that mirrored the glow of lyrium from his skin.

 

And on the other side was exactly the small, familiar room he expected to see.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Posting a bit earlier than intended, but I'll be away for a few days and I wanted to get another chapter up before I left. Do let me know if you have any thoughts!


	3. The Keeper

Kirkwall looked no shabbier than Dorian remembered it, and while he wouldn’t go so far as to say it was thriving, it did not look so war-torn as it had when he and Fenris had been here two years ago.

 

_Two years_. Dorian frowned. It wasn’t really something he wanted to think about.

 

As he descended the stairs into the Alienage, he wished, for once in his life, that he had thought to wear something less conspicuous. Today the Alienage was crowded, much more lively than it had been before, but there was no way for him to blend in, nearly a head taller than many of the elves and draped in brocades as he was. Voices grew hushed as he passed, some shrinking away while others eyed him suspiciously. A woman perched on a stool behind a tailor’s stall just outside Merrill’s house snatched up a pair of scissors as he approached, gripping onto the handles as if it were a dagger, so tightly her knuckles went white.

 

Dorian tried not to pay it any mind, and pressed onward to Merrill’s door. He took a deep breath and rapped his knuckles lightly against the aged wood.

 

Hardly a moment had passed before the door swung open as if by magic. Dorian blinked at the empty space before him, trailing his eyes lower until they came to rest upon a pair of little hands clinging to the doorknob.

 

An elven child stood before him – about six or seven years old by Dorian’s best guess, though it could be so hard to tell with elves – with tousled hair and big, round eyes. The two simply stared at each other, completely aghast, as seconds seemed to tick by into minutes.

 

_Merrill couldn't have a—_

“K-k-keeper Merrill!” the little boy shouted, yanking Dorian unceremoniously from his thoughts. “There’s a shemlen!” He stepped backwards, never taking his frightened eyes off of Dorian, nearly tripping over the rug in the process. “Keeper Merrill!”

 

Murmured voices carried from the other room, an agitated mingling of accents that Dorian recognized as both Dalish and Marcher.

 

Merrill rounded the corner into the room in a rush, but the tension quickly fell from her shoulders, a grin spreading over her lips. “Oh, hello, Dorian!” she said cheerfully, “I wasn’t expecting you.”

 

The little boy scurried to Merrill’s side, half hiding behind her, his stubby fingers grasping at the wrapped leather belt she wore at her hips.

 

Another elf, a young adult, peered carefully around the corner. “Keeper Merrill?”

 

“You can tell the others it’s alright, lethallin,” Merrill called back. “It’s only my friend.”

 

Dorian shifted awkwardly where he stood just outside the door. “May I come in?” he asked sheepishly, feeling more thoroughly humbled than he had in some time.

 

“Oh! Of course, please do!” Merrill stammered out. “I’m terribly sorry. I’m afraid I’ll never be a very good host.” Dorian smiled and shook his head to reassure her, and Merrill turned her attention to the little boy at her side. She pried his fingers gently away from her belt to kneel beside him, giving his wild hair a soft pat. “Don’t be afraid, da’len,” she said softly. “Dorian is my friend. He’s a very nice human.”

 

The little boy’s gaze darted between Merrill and Dorian for a moment, seeming unconvinced, but still he gave Merrill a conceding nod. She smiled at him, ruffling his hair again, and stood.

 

“Da’len, won’t you go ask Elsa to put some tea on for all of us?”

 

“Y-yes, Keeper Merrill,” the little boy answered. He turned on his heel and ran from the room as if it was the most urgent instruction he had ever received.

 

Dorian smiled despite himself as Merrill gestured for him to take a seat. “It’s good to see you, Merrill,” he said, and even with all of his other worries weighing down on him, it was the truth. He grinned impishly. “Or should I call you Keeper Merrill?”

 

Merrill’s face flushed bright red up to the tips of her ears. “I’m not really a Keeper,” she explained, perturbed, “I keep telling them that but they won’t listen. The elves Fenris has been rescuing, I mean. He sends them here and I help them find their old homes again, or their clans, or somewhere to live in Kirkwall…” Elsa appeared then, setting two mismatched porcelain cups brimming with tea on the table before them while balancing a tray with several more. Merrill halted, chewing at the inside of her lip. “But I’m certain Fenris has already told you about it, and I’m rambling again.”

 

Dorian fought back a guilty flinch at Merrill’s understandable assumption that he and Fenris had kept in touch. They had spent some months together helping the Inquisition at Skyhold in something that came oddly near domesticity, an uncomfortable-yet-comfortable state that Dorian both desired and feared more than anything else, before Dorian had to return to Tevinter. Communication had been sporadic at first, complicated as it was by Dorian’s highly visible social position and Fenris’s status as a wanted criminal, though it had not been infrequent. But it had trickled off to nothing over the past year – a fact Dorian tried to attribute to those complications, or to their busy lives, though he knew it all rang hollow.

 

Dorian took a sip of his tea as a way to deflect, allowing his eyes to slip closed as the warmth of it curled through him, bringing with it a kind of clarity that cut through a fog in his mind that he hadn’t been aware was there. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d had a full, restful night of sleep.

 

When he opened his eyes again, Merrill was blinking back at him expectantly. The weight descended again onto Dorian’s shoulders.

 

“I’m afraid I’m not here on a social call, though I wish I was,” he said, casting his eyes down to where Merrill’s hands sat folded on the table. “Inquisitor Lavellan sent me. She… had Fenris to investigating rumors about her clan being targeted by slavers, but she now has reason to believe that Fenris is missing, and may be in trouble.”

 

“Oh dear,” Merrill said absently, her mouth twisting into a thoughtful frown. “Layla – she’s from the alienage in Wycome – she said they had been traveling along the Minanter River before Fenris freed them. She’s still here, so we could ask her about where to start looking…”

 

“Viscount Tethras has contacts spanning the Free Marches. It may also be beneficial to speak with him,” Elsa said in her usual monotone as she reappeared from down the hall, the tea tray in her hands now empty.

 

“That’s a very good idea,” Merrill said with a nod. “Dorian, do you know when Varric will be back in Kirkwall?”

 

Dorian opened his mouth to reply, but before he could say anything there was a just barely perceptible surge of pressure in the air around them that shifted the loose leaves resting at the bottom of his teacup. A shrill cry rang out from the other room. He and Merrill exchanged a quick glance before they both leapt up and rushed towards the sound.

 

The elf who had peered around the corner earlier was backed against the far wall in fright, an active eluvian standing at the corner before her.

 

“Merrill,” Dorian began, faltering, “This is…”

 

“Layla, what happened?” Merrill asked, voice almost calm but with something frenzied stirring below the surface.

 

Layla did not move from where she stood, back pressed against the wall. “The mirror, it… Well, you can see it.” She swallowed thickly, and Dorian noted that her accent was the heavy melodic of the northern Free Marches. “There were elves on the other side. Two of them. Dalish, I think. They had the—” She gestured stiffly at her colourless face, as if she hadn’t really realized she had done it. “—blood tattoos.”

 

Merrill whispered something under her breath – a name, perhaps, though it was so quiet that Dorian wasn’t even sure that he had really heard her. She seemed unable to pull her gaze from the eluvian, an unreadable feverish energy in her eyes as she stepped forward, placing a hand to the surface. She yanked her hand back in alarm when the mirror rippled around her fingers, trying to guide her through.

 

“I thought it was only for sending messages… showing things,” she said softly as if to someone else far away, someone not present in the room. “But it… it’s a path.”

 

She grabbed ahold of one of the branching pieces of wood that twisted around the eluvian and began to climb atop it.

 

“Merrill, wait,” Dorian insisted, feeling rooted to the spot. “Are you certain it’s wise to just go inside, just like that?”

 

But Merrill did not seem to hear him. “ _Mythal’enaste_ ,” she breathed, in a daze as she took a deep breath and plunged through the eluvian’s surface like diving into water.

 

-

 

Varania squeezed her eyes shut hard and opened them again a few time, trying to blink away the fatigue that crept through her body as the hours wore on. Her hands moved almost automatically, pulling needle and thread through layers of silk to create fine and even stitches as deftly as her cramping hands would allow. She was behind on orders, and she needed to get this done before morning, no matter how tired she felt.

 

Her eyelids were beginning to slip closed again when the creak of hinges and the click of the latch from the front room of her shop jolted her awake.

 

The door. She had forgotten to lock the door.

 

Heart racing, she dropped her work on the table and hurried into the front room. Someone stood in the center of the room, face obscured by a hooded cloak far too heavy for the year-round heat of Minrathous. The figure’s slight height, not much taller than the racks of robes and dresses, gave them away as a somewhat short elf, or possibly a very short human. Varania took a deep breath and readied her magic, just in case.

 

“I’m terribly sorry, but we are closed,” she called out to the hooded figure.

 

“Do not be afraid,” the figure said – a young woman’s voice, her lips awkwardly forcing the words to form in Tevene as if she had not been speaking the language for long. “I will not harm you. I seek the sister of the wolf.”

 

Varania’s heart skipped a beat.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope the eluvian stuff doesn't end up feeling *too* deus ex machina or anything (eluvian ex machina?). And I hope you're all enjoying this sequel so far!


	4. Tooth and Blood

Though Dorian had climbed through the eluvian mere seconds after Merrill, she already had a considerable head start. He hurried over the rocky ground, black and slimy just as the physical Fade had been, taking as much care as he could not to slip. Merrill was just a short way ahead of him now, weaving in and out between the vaulted ivory structures that surrounded them.

 

Eventually, Merrill slowed to a stop in the center of a wide avenue, arms falling limply at her sides as if the life had suddenly drained out of her. Dorian caught up to her then, stepping beside her to see the way her gaze travelled upwards, her breath just the slightest bit laboured.

 

“Next time a mysterious ancient magical artifact comes to life near us, I’d really prefer that we take some precautions. Maybe make a plan first,” Dorian said without thinking, mouth twisting with how condescending it had sounded. He followed Merrill’s gaze to the rocky ceiling far above them, where pale structures similar to the ones that surrounded them jutted downwards.

 

_Like teeth_ , Dorian thought absently.

 

“I’m sorry, Dorian. I-I’ve been trying to restore this eluvian for years now. So when I saw it working…” Merrill replied, sounding distant as if confessing a long-held secret.

 

“I understand. I– That was rude of me to say.” He reached out and gave Merrill’s shoulder a careful pat. “Let’s go back for now,” he added, “At least to get your staff.”

 

Merrill closed her eyes for a moment, opening them again with a determined nod. “You’re right,” she said. “Ma serannas, Dorian. I’ll try not to be so rash.”

 

She turned to leave, but immediately froze in her tracks, giving a long glance to her right, and then to her left. “You don’t happen to remember how we got here, do you?”

 

Dorian frowned. “Not really, no,” he admitted.

 

Merrill met Dorian’s gaze, the ghost of a sheepish smile on her face. She opened her mouth to speak, but before she could, a shout echoed out from somewhere to their left, reverberating off the slimy rocks. An elven teenager with a long braid pulled over one shoulder approached, calling out to them again with hands cupped around his mouth to amplify the sound. A group of about a dozen more elves followed warily a few paces behind him.

 

“Well, it seems we’ve found our Dalish elves,” Dorian said.

 

“Ah, one of the people!” the boy with the braid exclaimed in relief as he approached, allowing his steps to become more hurried. “My name in Haelvhrin, First of Clan Lavellan. Perhaps you’re the one I was told to find,” he explained, addressing only Merrill. “We just escaped some slavers through an eluvian, and it lead us here. If you are Merrill, I was told you could help us.”

 

“Lavellan?” Dorian said, voice coming out more strained and frantic than he would have liked. “Tell me, have you seen an elf with white hair and strange markings made of lyrium?”

 

Haelvhrin’s attention snapped to Dorian as if he only just noticed that he was there. His eyes narrowed in suspicion. “Who are you?”

 

Dorian gave a long sigh. “I’m with the Inquisition,” he explained with clear impatience.

 

Haelvhrin’s eyes remained narrowed, but he conceded. “Fenris helped us escape, but he insisted on going back,” he explained hesitantly. “Said he had to try to free the others too.”

 

“ _Vishante kaffas_ ,” Dorian spat under his breath, far more irritated with this boy than he had any right to be, but too terrified to rein it in. “Where is he? How do I get there?”

 

“There’s another eluvian back there,” Haelvhrin began, gesturing towards a nearby alley. Dorian’s feet were already moving before he’d even finished speaking.

 

-

 

Dorian stumbled out of the eluvian on the other side in a blind rush, as if he wasn’t fully in control of his own body, only slowing slightly when the path before him became dangerously narrow. He broke into a run as soon as the path widened out again, nearly tripping on his robes on the steep incline. The path curved sharply down and away from its highest point, and Dorian skidded to an ungraceful halt once he reached it, just inches away from careening past a cluster of bare trees and plummeting over the side into the bottomless misty depths.

 

He drew an insubstantial breath in an attempt to calm his racing heart. The rocky ground stretched out before him in a path that ended a short distance ahead, in front of an inactive eluvian. His eyes darted around, quickly coming to rest upon a hunched figure with a shock of white hair. Dorian was running again before he could even attempt to talk himself into being more cautious.

 

Fenris was on his knees in a patch of dead bushes, bent forward, eyes on the ground in front of him with his hands clutching at his left side. A truly worrying amount of deep crimson gore trailed between him and the eluvian – spattered on his skin and in his hair, smeared along the edges of the mirror from where he had pulled himself back through, dying his gauntleted hands up to the elbows on both sides, the vibrant colour indicating that it was fresh. Dorian could hear Fenris’s ragged, laboured breathing as he hurried closer, stepping around the greatsword that lay haphazardly discarded at Fenris’s side.

 

“I see you’ve been busy,” Dorian blurted out, not even trying to mask the way his words fell flat in his worry.

 

Fenris’s brow furrowed, and he finally looked up. As he met Dorian’s gaze, his expression flashed rapidly from recognition, to hope – then slipping, settling on a blank look of resignation.

 

“I suppose it _would_ look like him,” Fenris said plainly, nose wrinkled in half-hearted disgust, eyes focusing on some undefined point in the distance as if he could see right through Dorian.

 

“I—” Dorian began, and faltered, confused. “What?”

 

Fenris let out a bitter, humourless laugh, wincing at the way it shook his injured body. “I have learned my lesson once already, demon. You will get nothing from me.”

 

Dorian’s eyebrows rose incredulously. “I’m not sure if I’m flattered that you think a demon would try to tempt you using my likeness, or if I’m appalled that you apparently desire me wearing dusty travelling clothes after being kept awake in the throes of seasickness for several days on some ghastly little ship,” Dorian said, drawing a defeated breath when Fenris simply stared blankly back. “This isn’t the Fade, Fenris,” he offered.

 

“Perhaps not,” Fenris replied, eyes narrowed, “but it is very near the Fade. I can sense—” He was cut off by a wracking cough that tore from his throat, and he curled in on himself, arms wrapping tighter around his middle.

 

Dorian sighed and knelt down beside him, drawing a healing potion that he was thankful he’d kept with him from his robes and holding it out towards Fenris. “You’re hurt,” he said, frowning. “Drink this, at least. We can debate about whether or not I’m a demon once you’re no longer bleeding.”

 

Fenris only glared at the bottle. Dorian pinched the bridge of his nose.

 

“ _Festis bei umo canavarum_ , Fenris, don’t you think that a demon would be much less tired and irritable and would offer you something much more impressive than one measly potion?” He uncorked the bottle, snatched up Fenris’s wrist, surprised when he met no resistance, and pressed it into his hand.

 

Fenris’s eyes met Dorian’s, focusing on his face as if searching for answers there, silent for some time. “I believe you,” he said at last, and drank the potion. His eyes slipped closed in relief as the potion did its work to stem the bleeding and ease the pain, gradually beginning to repair the torn flesh. After a few deep breaths, he stood, slowly, carefully.

 

Dorian watched from where he remained absentmindedly kneeling as Fenris examined the now partially healed wound in his side, and once satisfied, stretched his arms and back experimentally before retrieving his sword from the ground. His posture had changed in the time they’d been apart. There was something less guarded about it, his spine just a bit straighter and limbs more flexible, exuding a kind of confidence that had only been barely beginning to emerge before. It occurred to Dorian that perhaps Fenris was only now losing the low and submissive bearing of a slave, or the taut and ready stance of his years on the run – a thought that sent odd, conflicting feelings of pride and aversion coursing through him.

 

“What are you doing here?”

 

The sound of Fenris’s voice pulled Dorian from his thoughts, and he reflexively leapt to his feet as if he’d been caught spying on an intimate moment. “Looking for you,” he replied simply.

 

Fenris gave a hum of acknowledgment. “The Inquisitor sent you. I presume you’ve met the others, then? I came back to free the rest, but the slavers had prepared an ambush,” he explained, eyes still shut.

 

“I suppose the blood and entrails smeared everywhere is what’s left of that ambush,” Dorian said with a sweeping gesture at the ground around them, sounding much more collected than he felt.

 

Fenris gave a soft, pleased laugh as he opened his eyes and glanced over his shoulder at Dorian. That devilish smirk of his pulled at one corner of his lips, sending a ridiculous and very familiar fluttering sensation spreading through Dorian’s body. “You could say that,” he replied, looking positively chuffed.

 

A thousand questions raced through Dorian’s mind, but he _knew_ Fenris, and so decided to voice only the most pressing, at least for the time being. “And now…?”

 

Fenris stalked towards the eluvian, drew a careful breath, and activated his markings. The air pressure shifted as the surface of the mirror burst into light at the same time as the lyrium, washing over Dorian in a wave and leaving him in stunned silence.

 

“And now,” Fenris repeated, “I finish what I started.” He glanced again over his shoulder at Dorian, giving a curt nod towards the eluvian before him. “Whether you join me or not.”

 

“Wait,” Dorian said, a little too quickly, and Fenris turned to eye him warily. Dorian took a deep breath. “I will help you, but first, we need a plan.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I feel like I should mention that since Merrill's eluvian is reconstructed from the one in the Dalish elf origin, I've based the look of the Crossroads there on the fact that Tamlen said he saw an "underground city" through it. I don't really have a reason for the whole teeth thing... it was just what I imagined and I liked how unsettling/vaguely sinister it felt to me.
> 
> (I have more thoughts on that particular eluvian that I may talk about later when it's more relevant.)


	5. Spirit Flux

When Fenris and Dorian emerged through the eluvian and into the caverns, the slavers were waiting for them.

 

A line of well-equipped guards blocked the ruined hallway before them, the darkness obscuring their numbers. Dorian threw down a barrier spell before he had even stepped fully from the mirror, just barely in time to extend the protective magic over Fenris as he lunged forward without pause, bringing his sword down heavily on one unprepared guard. As the first man fell, the rest sprang into action.

 

Dorian swallowed thickly and scattered an array of glyphs on the ground surrounding Fenris, sending the group that was bearing down on him jumping back in blind panic or collapsing to the ground in columns of flame.

 

Fenris took that moment to plant his feet and force his markings to burst into light. Dorian could feel the energy of the lyruim wash over him and nearly faltered. There was something strange about it – the way it lingered, like static crackling in the air around them, more powerful than Dorian remembered. The lyrium glowed blindingly bright, but Fenris himself had almost faded out entirely, incorporeal as a wraith, his movements through the battle impossible to track.

 

_Has it always been so…?_

Dorian pushed the thought away. He needed to concentrate on the fight.

 

The darkness made it impossible to tell how many were left, but after the intertwining shrieks of one man being torn apart by Dorian’s magic and another whose heart had been crushed by Fenris finally finished echoing through the ruined passageway, everything went silent.

 

Dorian stepped forward cautiously, just barely able to make out the way Fenris grit his teeth hard, eyes squeezed narrow as the lyrium flickered out. An involuntary breathy sigh escaped Fenris’s lips.

 

“There will be more in the outer rooms,” he said after a moment, voice firm.

 

Cautiously, Dorian summoned a wisp of fire into his palm, studying Fenris’s face in the dim light. “Are your markings causing you trouble?”

 

“No,” Fenris replied plainly, casting Dorian a dismissive look from the corner of his eye before turning to lead the way over the rubble before them. “Extinguish that light, fool.”

 

Dorian bit down the urge to be contrary and did as he was told.

 

Resistance was much lighter from there on. The remaining slavers were completely unprepared: some asleep, some eating food, and very few in armour, assuming that one elf could not have possibly made it past such an ambush. They made quick work of the guards patrolling the slave pens, promising those trapped inside that they would be back, and fought on through the caverns.

 

The only remaining slaver had fled at the first sign of combat, retreating into a small room sectioned off by wooden walls placed against the stone of the cave and barring the door behind him. When the last guard fell, Fenris immediately turned on his heel and stormed for the door, fists clenched hard at his sides and lyrium alight. Suddenly, he halted, only a few paces away, his shoulders falling, the glow of his markings fading out. With an aggravated growl he slammed his shoulder as hard as he could against the door, hard enough to truly hurt him – once, twice – but it did not budge.

 

Fenris stopped, keeping his back to Dorian as he clenched and unclenched his fists. “Mage,” he called back, sounding irritable, and yet somehow Dorian knew the irritation was not directed at him. “Dorian. Can you…” He trailed off, gesturing vaguely at the door.

 

Dorian narrowed his eyes, adding another question to the list of concerns that would definitely be addressed once they returned to Kirkwall, before replying, “Of course, though you may want to stand back.”

 

Fenris stalked away from the door. Dorian returned his staff to his back and planted his feet in a wide stance, concentrating as best he could with Fenris pacing agitatedly in his peripheral vision. He tightened the muscles, lifting his hands slowly upwards as a controlled flash fire erupted from beneath the door, intense waves of heat rolling from the flames, reducing the door and everything that had been barricaded against it to a pile of ash and charcoal in a matter of seconds. An undignified screech echoed out from inside the room as Dorian dropped his hands to his sides, feeling boneless.

 

“Don’t come any closer!” the slaver called from where he cowered behind a stack of crates as Dorian followed Fenris into the room. The man was the leader of the operation, judging by his expensive-looking clothing – both knew his type well, harmless when coin was not enough to protect him.

 

Fenris scoffed. His muscles went visibly stiff, and his markings burst into light again. The slaver stood paralyzed with fear as Fenris stepped forward, cornering him. He plunged a hand into the man’s chest, watching the horror playing across his face coolly.

 

Dorian opened his mouth to begin the interrogation, but the words caught in his throat. Fenris’s markings flickered, so quickly that Dorian would have thought his eyes were playing tricks on him had it not been followed immediately by a sick crunching sound and Fenris yanking his hand back abruptly as if he had been burned, flinging bloody clumps of tissue from his gauntlets. A gaping tear stretched across the man’s chest, deep red spreading out through his expensive shirt, visible for only a moment before he collapsed forward, dead.

 

A string of curses in a muddled mixture of Tevene and Common tore from Fenris’s lips. His body shook as if ready to burst, and he gave the slaver’s corpse a hard kick to the skull before he began to pace, wringing his hands as if trying unsuccessfully to calm himself.

 

“Perhaps I’ve misunderstood something vital, but I believe he needed to be alive in order to question him,” Dorian blurted out before he could stop himself.

 

“ _Kaffas_ ,” Fenris hissed, voice ragged with frustration. He slammed the palms of his hands against the top of one of the crates and then shifted to lean his weight heavily onto them, shoulders rising and falling slowly as he took several deep breaths.

 

Dorian opened and shut his mouth a few times, feeling very much like a fish flopping about on dry land. His eyes trailed over the tendons pulled taut in Fenris’s arms, and his chest heaved with a heavy sigh. “That was unfair, and I apologize. It seems I simply cannot resist being an ass when the opportunity presents itself.”

 

“It seems not,” Fenris spat, but there was no real fury in it, and his muscles visibly relaxed.

 

“Your markings _are_ giving you trouble, aren’t they?” Dorian pressed.

 

“They have… changed, since the second ritual,” Fenris admitted, voice barely above a whisper. “I imagine you can feel it as well as I. The connection to the Fade is more powerful, but they’ve become… difficult to control.”

 

Dorian gave a thoughtful hum. “I’d like to talk about this more once we’re done here, if you don’t mind,” he said, kneeling down beside the slaver’s corpse to pluck the keys from his belt, “But for now, we need to get these people out of here.”

 

Fenris turned to face him at last with a determined nod.

 

-

 

“It’s gotta be June,” the girl said authoritatively. “Like Haelvhrin’s.” She paused, tilting her head back with a sweeping gesture at her throat. “June’s vallaslin is the only one that goes down onto your neck like that.”

 

The group of children that surrounded the girl, Dalish and alienage elves alike, all craned their necks to catch a glimpse of Fenris as they walked through the Crossroads.

 

“June taught the Dalish how to make bows and stuff,” the girl added, addressing one of the younger city elves who looked up at her with the kind of childish fascination city elves always feel towards the Dalish when they first learn of them.

 

An older boy snorted, crossing his arms in defiance. “His vallaslin looks nothing like Haelvhrin’s.”

 

The girl rolled her eyes dramatically. “That’s because some clans use different variations, you _seth’lin_.”

 

“You’re a _seth’lin_!” the boy shot back.

 

Another girl of about twelve years old broke away from the rest of the children, sprinting to catch up to Fenris. “What’s the name of your clan?” she asked. The rest fell silent, waiting.

 

“I am not Dalish,” Fenris answered simply.

 

The girl blinked, but pressed on, undeterred. “But you have vallaslin.”

 

Fenris drew a breath and closed his eyes. “It is not vallaslin,” he said, reminding himself that she was only a child, trying and failing to hide his impatience. “It is lyrium. A magister put it in my skin because I was his slave.”

 

The girl’s eyes went wide, and she scurried back to the others in fright as they all began to whisper over each other – they had nearly become slaves; would the Magisters have marked them like that too? A few of the adults rushed over to try to calm them down. Dorian sighed and shook his head.

 

When they finally arrived at the eluvian that lead back to Merrill’s house, Dorian lead the way through, relieved to find that someone had cut off the curling branches of wood that had crossed over the opening before. Merrill rushed into the room almost immediately, taking hold of Dorian’s hand as he stepped through as if he needed help keeping his balance. Varric hovered in the doorframe.

 

“Lavellan told me everything and Daisy filled me in on the rest,” Varric explained. “I headed over as soon as I managed to give Bran the slip, but it looks like you’ve already taken care of those slavers.” He eyed the little flecks of blood drying on Dorian’s clothes.

 

“They certainly won’t be bothering anyone again,” Dorian replied.

 

The newly freed captives began to file out of the eluvian one at a time, with Merrill fussing over each one in turn. Varric and Dorian cast hesitant looks around Merrill’s house, already crowded as it was with the dozen or so who had come with Haelvhrin.

 

“I don’t know if everyone will fit,” Merrill said, a distressed edge to her voice as the room began to fill up and Dorian pushed through the mass of people to the front door to guide some of them outside. “And it’s already so late for them to start their journey back today. The alienage is crowded, but there must be somewhere…”

 

Varric scratched at his chin. “Don’t fret, Daisy. I have an idea.” He turned on his heel and began to weave through the crowd of taller elves and humans, calling back, “Just give me an hour!”


	6. But I Am Here

Varania hunched her shoulders to lower herself automatically as she rounded the corner and saw the two men at a nearby market stall. They did not seem to be Magisters – their clothing did not look quite expensive or fashionable enough – though they had to be from a family of some importance. Father and son, judging by how the younger man so closely resembled the older.

 

They did not seem to notice Varania at all as she passed by them, but their conversation caught her attention. She casually approached the neighbouring market stall, feigning interest in the pottery on sale there, turning her face away but listening closely.

 

“Do you think his slaves were really stolen?” the son said, voice eager with the thrill of gossip.

 

“Whose slaves?” the father asked absently, focused on the alchemical supplies laid out before him.

 

The son gave a frown and a soft, frustrated sigh at his father’s inattention. “Magister Anodatus,” he replied impatiently. “I told you I saw him making a scene about it in the senate the other day…?”

 

The father scoffed. “Oh, that,” he said distastefully. “Magister Anodatus is a pitiful old fool. I can’t believe he’s still showing his face after that _incaensor_ burned his hands off a few years ago.” He picked up a small glass vial and held it up to the light, examining the liquid inside. “Of course he’s lying.”

 

“But wouldn’t that mean he is the ideal victim? Because no one would believe him anyway?”

 

The father looked up at that, eyes narrowed as he studied his son’s face. “No,” he replied, “I do not think so. Everyone knows the man bleeds his slaves because his magic is weak. He probably killed them in his carelessness and is now trying to get replacements for free with false accusations.”

 

The son gave a thoughtful hum. Varania turned and hurried on her way, her original reason for coming to the market forgotten. She kept her face lowered as she walked, feeling as if the setting sun was casting its light like a beacon that illuminated her for all to see.

 

-

 

“It was very kind of Viscount Tethras to arrange lodging for us,” a middle-aged Dalish woman said. Nevra was her name, as Fenris recalled.

 

Dorian let out a short, breathy laugh. “I’m not sure I would call a free night at the Hanged Man a ‘kindness’, but I’m glad you have somewhere to rest before you get underway in the morning.”

 

“Beggars can’t be choosers, I suppose,” Haelvhrin said with a petulant pout, unimpressed by the Hanged Man after helping the others get set up there. Nevra shot him a warning glare, which he ignored.

 

Merrill sighed dreamily. “I do wish everyone could stay longer. We could all play Wicked Grace. I could show you how.”

 

Fenris, who had been looking as if he was just barely holding himself back from escaping ever since they’d made it back to Kirkwall, finally slipped out while she spoke. Dorian watched the door close carefully behind him, and then made a show of yawning, saying a few hasty goodnights as he stood to follow. Merrill had noticed Fenris leaving and gave Dorian a knowing smile, squeezing his hand gently as he passed by her. The smile he returned was strained – she was making assumptions that Dorian wished more than anything were still true, though he was fairly certain they were not.

 

As he pulled the door shut behind him, he could hear Varric’s voice carrying from the landing of the steps that lead out of the alienage.

 

“Now, what kind of friend would I be if I let you stay in that musty old place when I can offer you something better?”

 

“The kind who minds his own business,” Fenris shot back hopelessly, fully aware that he was fighting a losing battle.

 

“Listen, Elf… Fenris,” Varric said, voice soft, “You don’t have to make anything of this, other than the fact that I prefer that my friends go to sleep somewhere safe at night, and there’s only so many safe places left right now. But I know the two of you—” Varric noticed Dorian approaching out of the corner of his eye and halted, cutting himself off with a delayed and entirely unconvincing fake cough.

 

“By all means, don’t let me interrupt you,” Dorian offered, trying to sound lighthearted but frowning all the same.

 

“Sparkler!” Varric exclaimed, determined to pretend he hadn’t seen Dorian there before. “I pulled some strings, and I managed to get one of the ambassadorial suites in the Keep for you. Already moved your luggage there and everything. You gave up your room at the Hanged Man to sleep in the lap of Kirkwall luxury!”

 

Dorian’s gaze travelled to Fenris, who was pointedly looking anywhere but at Dorian. “I’m sensing a catch.”

 

“No catch, unless you count the fact that Kirkwall luxury is comparatively… not very luxurious,” Varric replied with a grin. “Oh, and the room comes with a glowing elf, but he promises to keep the brooding to a minimum. Now, come with me.” He turned and began to head towards Hightown, intentionally giving them no room to back out.

 

Dorian felt strange, as if every sinew and tendon in his body was wound too tightly, his skin suddenly a touch too small. He tried to convince himself of the practicality: it was getting late, and anywhere else they could stay was already full of rescued elves, and that type of room was always more than sufficient to house two people. And besides, he and Fenris had shared rooms before, both intimately and not. It didn’t have to be awkward.

 

It didn’t have to be, but it was certainly going to be.

 

Dorian flopped down on the just-slightly-lumpy canopy bed almost the instant Varric had closed the door behind them. Fenris did not join him. He could hear him shuffling around somewhere else in the room, but paid him no mind, deciding to simply bask in the only reasonably soft bed he’d been in since leaving the Winter Palace, the fact that he was still fully dressed be damned.

 

He was beginning to doze when he felt the mattress dip. He cracked one eye open to see Fenris perched stiffly at the foot of the opposite side of the bed, back turned, as far away from him as possible. But he wasn’t running away, and he had removed his armour, so Dorian counted it as a victory.

 

For some time, Fenris simply stared pensively at the palms of his hands where they rested in his lap. Dorian had nearly begun to doze again when he finally spoke.

 

“We have… fallen out of touch.”

 

It was both entirely accurate and a massive understatement. Dorian propped himself up on one elbow. “We have,” he said lamely.

 

There was a light tapping at the door, and both of them jumped. Without waiting for a reply, the door swung unceremoniously open and Seneschal Bran strode in carrying a bottle of wine and a platter with two stemmed glasses and a small plate of soft cheeses and sliced apples.

 

“Compliments of the Viscount,” Bran said blandly, setting the bottle and platter down on the table and eyeing the objects with contempt, as if being asked to deliver food was the most demeaning thing he’d ever experienced. Before they could even thank him, he had already bowed out of the room and closed the door behind him.

 

Fenris’s eyes met Dorian’s, and Dorian gave a shrug before standing to go fetch the food. He carried it back to the bed without thinking, realizing entirely too late how much the situation felt like something out of one of Cassandra’s absurd romance novels. But, perhaps, that was a fantasy he could allow himself to entertain. He felt heat rush to his face at the thought and cursed himself internally, but now that he’d come so far it would be even more suspicious to back out, so he simply took his seat on the mattress again and filled both glasses with wine as casually as possible.

 

Fenris seemed not to notice Dorian’s sudden discomfort, focused as he was on his own, clearly grateful to get some alcohol into his system. He downed almost the entire glass of wine in one long gulp, paused for a moment as if considering something, and then grabbed an apple and plopped it into his mouth, eyes slipping closed with a contented hum, chewing with something akin to bliss spread over his features. They ate and drank in silence, while Dorian avoided taking any of the apples for himself, reveling in that look on Fenris’s face.

 

As the hour wore on, the tension began to dissipate. Fenris had moved gradually from the very end of the bed until he was lying propped up on one elbow not too far from Dorian’s side, the dishes having been moved to the nightstand and forgotten. Dorian had finally allowed himself to undress little by little, treating his clothing unusually carelessly, the outer layers of his robes joining his boots in a crumpled pile of the floor.

 

Dorian stretched languidly on the bed, bending his bare arms to rest his head back on his hands. He could feel eyes upon him, and his lips pulled into a smug grin, certain that Fenris was admiring his body – until he looked up to see that Fenris’s gaze fell instead on the long scar that ran the length of his left forearm.

 

The scar remained from that moment of panic, when he had needed to offer his blood to ensure Fenris’s recovery. Both selfish and not, he supposed, but he couldn’t help but to feel some shame about it. He had been careless, and now it would be there for the rest of his life. A permanent reminder that itched sometimes when he cast spells, as if the innate power in his blood bubbled and boiled with the desire to be set loose again, even though he had not even been the one drawing upon that power. The thought made him sick.

 

“Fitting, isn’t it?” Dorian said bitterly, moving his left arm to rest across his waist instead, hiding the mark, “A magister with a blood magic scar.”

 

Fenris seemed to finally snap out of his trance then, tearing his eyes away, brow furrowed. “You are not a magister. You say so yourself constantly.”

 

Suddenly, it was impossible to look at Fenris. “No longer true,” Dorian replied weakly.

 

Fenris’s gaze snapped up to Dorian’s face in alarm, before he quieted the emotion and looked away again. “Then, your father…”

 

“Assassinated,” Dorian supplied, feeling detached from his own words as if they were being spoken by a stranger with his voice. “Not long after I left for the Exalted Council, which he insisted I attend. Perhaps he wanted me out of Tevinter because he saw this coming and didn’t want me to be in danger too.” He let out a breath, feeling betrayed by the small tremor in it. “I’ll never know now, I suppose.”

 

A suffocating silence descended between them, creeping in to squeeze Dorian’s throat shut. Though they lay close beside each other, both stared straight up as if unable to see the other, motionless.

 

“I know things were… difficult,” Fenris said after a moment, voice soft but rough at the edges, knowing, “And nothing I can say could be enough… But you’ve still lost your father, and I am sorry.”

 

Dorian let his eyes fall closed, suddenly losing all the energy it had been taking to maintain the facade that it hadn’t been affecting him, whether he was truly able to believe it yet or not. “Thank you,” he breathed, hardly audible at all, even in the stillness of the quiet room.

 

“If there is anything…”

 

Dorian shook his head. “No. Just…” He faltered. He wanted _something_ , but he did not fully understand it, nor could he voice it.

 

But Fenris seemed to understand, drawing just the slightest bit closer, body stiff with everything their time apart had undone but still radiating warmth beside him, undeniably _there_ – and it was everything Dorian needed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> /Tries to take the "there's only one bed" trope and make it sad.
> 
> Anyway, thank you for reading and I hope all of you are doing well. I found the second half of this chapter fairly cathartic to write, so I hope I was able to share that feeling with at least one of you when you read it.


	7. City of Decay

“Morrigan said the eluvians all have a key,” Dorian observed, tapping one hand absently on Merrill’s table, “and that the key could be anything. An object. Words. Power, magical or otherwise. Knowledge.”

 

Fenris crossed his arms where he stood beside the table. “Meaning that the key to these eluvians is… what?” He uncrossed his arms again, stretching one out to look at the brands that twisted around it. “Lyrium?”

 

“Perhaps,” Dorian replied, “Though there seems to be more to it than that, doesn’t there? Your markings are certainly capable of opening them, though whether the mirrors close behind you or stay open seems to depend on your needs at the time.”

 

“Could it have something to do with Fenris’s connection to the Fade?” Merrill mused, chewing thoughtfully at her lip. “Or because his markings are different now?”

 

“It is also possible that Fenris himself is the key,” Elsa offered, watching Fenris closely with her icy, emotionless eyes.

 

The room went uncomfortably silent for a moment, before Merrill shook her head. “That can’t be it,” she said plainly. “The eluvians came from the time of Arlathan. Our ancestors couldn’t have designed them for a particular elf who wouldn’t even live for another eight thousand years. It doesn’t make any sense at all.”

 

“What about bloodlines?” Dorian said. “Is it possible that Fenris is descended from some particular ancient lineage and the eluvians are reacting to his heritage?”

 

Fenris scoffed. “We are talking about Arlathan, not the Imperium.”

 

“Yes, Arlathan,” Dorian shot back, “A society that we know nearly nothing about, upon which the Imperium built itself.” His voice dripped with sarcasm as he added, “There couldn’t _possibly_ be any similarities.”

 

Fenris wrinkled his nose but said nothing, turning away to begin pacing up and down the room.

 

“That can’t be it,” Merrill repeated, as if she hadn’t heard them arguing. “Tamlen, a member of my clan, found this eluvian while we were still in Fereldan, and it was _unlocked_. How could that have happened if Fenris is the key?”

 

Fenris halted his pacing, shoulders stiff. “A lock can be changed,” he said vaguely, as if it disgusted him to suggest it.

 

Merrill let out a sudden humourless laugh, sharp at the edge with bitterness. “I’ve worked so hard to restore this eluvian for so many years now,” she breathed, only audible because the world around them seemed to have suddenly gone so deafeningly silent. “I’ve sacrificed so much. And now you’re saying the key was right in front of me, nearly the whole time.” Her face was downcast, but her hands were shaking, just barely.

 

Fenris scoffed again, but he didn’t sound nearly as impudent as he had intended.

 

A knock echoed from the door, and Elsa stood to answer it.

 

“Perhaps it's not that simple,” Dorian said softly to Merrill, frowning at how feeble an attempt to comfort her it was, but Merrill gave him a weak nod of acknowledgment nonetheless. Fenris had not yet turned back around, but Dorian swore there was something like guilt straining in the set of his shoulders.

 

Elsa pulled the door open, and Varric came striding in proudly. “Half of Clan Lavellan and practically the entire elven population of Wycome is now on their way towards Ostwick,” he announced, a bit too cheerfully, as if he had read the mood of the room and decided to openly defy it. “I talked some nobles into donating coin and supplies to them on behalf of the Inquisition, and I convinced Aveline to lend them a few members of the Kirkwall guard for protection, so they should make it back just fine.”

 

Fenris returned to his spot near the table with an approving nod. “Good.”

 

“Now,” Varric continued, reaching back to pat his crossbow, “You were planning to do some exploring today, right?”

 

Merrill’s eyes went wide, a hesitant but genuine smile on her face. “You’ll go with us, Varric?”

 

“For the love of Andraste, _yes_ ,” Varric replied. “I’ve only been back in Kirkwall for one day and I’ve already got Bran _and_ the Merchant’s Guild _and_ an envoy from Starkhaven all breathing down my neck. I will absolutely follow you into the ancient elven magic mirror if it means that any of them will leave me alone.”

 

Merrill gave an excited clap and leapt to her feet, grabbing her staff from where it leaned against the wall. “Then what are we waiting for?”

 

-

 

The eluvian leading back to the slaver den along the Minanter River had gone dark, but that was not their concern, the Crossroad there little more than a single path. Rather, it was the expanse of stony white towers that stretched out just beyond Merrill’s eluvian that had their interest. Though it was not such a vast area, the size of the cusped ivory structures meant that anything could be hidden in the sprawling system of wide avenues and narrow alleys that wove between them.

 

“Should we split up?” Merrill asked. “We could cover more ground that way.”

 

Fenris surveyed the space around them with distrust. “No,” he replied. “We do not know what might be here.”

 

“I agree. Safety in numbers,” Varric chimed in.

 

Dorian let out a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding, shoulders relaxing in some measure of relief. The Crossroads in general weren’t exactly the most calming place, but there was something particularly uncanny about this section that made him uneasy. “Since we’ve already gone in that direction a few times, why don’t we start on this side?” he suggested with a gesture to their right.

 

Merrill nodded. “Good idea,” she said, and began to lead the way down the nearest avenue.

 

A precarious silence descended over them as they walked, and the unease Dorian felt only grew stronger as they continued through row upon row of those unnatural, tooth-like structures. There was something thick and stifling about the frigid air – a heaviness not unlike the atmosphere when clouds were about to break before a storm. He wanted to tear through it and run from it all at once.

 

“Fenris, there is something I’ve been meaning to ask you,” Dorian said, hoping at the very least that conversation would distract him from feeling so on edge. “You’ve been having trouble activating your markings, have you not? But when you used them to open the eluvians while in the Crossroads, it seemed easier.”

 

“It is easier here, yes,” Fenris replied.

 

“Because this place is something like the Fade?”

 

“Perhaps,” Fenris said, “Although… even simply moving feels easier, here.”

 

At that, Varric nearly tripped over his own feet. “Easier?” he asked incredulously. “You could cut the air in here with a knife. How is that easier?”

 

Merrill turned towards them with her brows raised, carefully walking backwards as she spoke. “I feel it too, Fenris. It’s a bit like… wading through warm water,” she mused, “And no matter what direction I turn, the current is moving with me.”

 

“Come to think of it, Lavellan said much the same thing,” Dorian added. “It seems the Crossroads favours elves.”

 

“Lucky you,” Varric said with a snort. “This is just another blighted cave to me. Like the Deep Roads but with less darkspawn.” He then stopped in his tracks so abruptly that Fenris nearly crashed into him, only managing to dodge by moving to the side with an undignified hop, but it seemed Varric hadn’t noticed their near miss at all. “Are those _bones_?” he asked, staring off to the right.

 

Merrill spun around again, and they all followed Varric’s gaze to one of the vaulted white structures that stood a few rows away. The side of the structure facing them had crumbled, leaving the top cantilevered over a pile of rubble. Sitting at the bottom of the rubble was something that looked worryingly like a skull.

 

The group exchanged nervous glances and headed for the collapsed stone.

 

As they drew closer, Merrill broke into a run, dropping to her knees once she got there. It _was_ a skull, and there was more – the skeleton was lying on its side, one arm reaching out as if trying to pull itself free, delicate finger bones eerily undisturbed beside a snapped and decaying longbow, the narrow ribcage of an elf wrapped in Dalish leather armour crushed beneath the rubble. Merrill’s hands squeezed tightly around an amulet among the loose vertebrae.

 

“Tamlen,” Merrill breathed. Her grip tightened around the amulet, knuckles going white. “I… I mentioned him before, didn’t I?” she continued, voice thin but oddly level. “He found the eluvian in some ruins in the Brecilian Forest, but when he touched it he… disappeared. We never found him before the clan moved north…” She opened her hand, staring down at the pendant resting in her palm.

 

Varric tentatively placed a hand on her shoulder. “Everything alright, Daisy?”

 

“Falon’Din guide you safely to the Beyond, lethallin,” Merrill whispered to the bones as if she hadn’t heard Varric at all, her voice floating softly on the air. A moment of stillness passed, and she took a deep breath, stood, and pocketed the amulet. “I’m fine, Varric,” she replied at last with a sad but reassuring smile. “It’s just… It’s a relief to finally know, after all these years.”

 

A few feet away, Fenris knelt down beside another half-buried skeleton and tore out an arrow that had been lodged between the joints of its crude, spiked armour. “Hurlocks,” he said, scowling at the corpse. “Your Tamlen must have been fighting them when this tower collapsed.”

 

Varric let out a bitter laugh. “And here I was thinking we wouldn’t have to deal with any darkspawn.”

 

Dorian toed at one of the skeletal hurlocks’ chestplate with his boot. “These remains are almost entirely rotted away, but they seem completely undisturbed,” he observed. “I think it unlikely that there are more.”

 

“Either way, be on your guard,” Fenris said.

 

They did not discuss where to head next. None of them had even thought to. They simply walked, pulled along by the same invisible magnetic force without realizing, without thinking. It was not long before they came upon another eluvian standing tall at the end of a turn in the path.

 

“Well, Elf,” Varric said, “think you can open it?”

 

Fenris frowned deeply, but still stalked forward, giving the brassy surface of the mirror a suspicious glare before his markings burst into light and the eluvian rippled to life. Merrill let out a delighted gasp, clenching her fists in anticipation so hard that they shook. Dorian narrowed his eyes into the darkness that stared back from the other side.

 

“I suppose there is no point in trying to talk you out of going in there,” Fenris said, nose wrinkled. They pushed through the newly activated eluvian one by one, as Fenris lingered, muttering under his breath about how foolish the others were as if he was not planning to follow.

 

The air on the other side was old and stale, but not stagnant, funneling in a slow, weak draft through the narrow passage. It was impossibly dark, with only the bluish glow from the eluvian reflecting upon worn stone support pillars that looked as though they must have once been ornately carved before falling into centuries of neglect. The pillars cast deep shadows into the odd rectangular alcoves that lined each side of the hall, fading away into the blackness as if it stretched on infinitely.

 

Dorian had halted the moment he stepped out of the mirror, standing dumbly frozen in place, so that Fenris had to grab onto his shoulders and steer him carefully out of the way in order to step down beside him onto the freezing stone floor. If Dorian had noticed the contact, he didn’t acknowledge it. He simply stared out into the darkness before them.

 

“I—” Dorian began, voice too choked, too quiet, before he cleared his throat and tried again, “I think I know where we are.”

 

The words hit Fenris like an arrow through the chest, pinning him to the spot where he had stepped out beside Dorian in the narrow hall, his hands freezing in midair as he dropped them from Dorian’s shoulders.

 

“This is Tevinter,” Fenris breathed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My headcanon, if you're interested, is that Duncan was wrong about this eluvian *itself* being corrupted by the blight, and rather that darkspawn had found the eluvian and were trying to use it (either by some accident or by design - perhaps because the Architect wanted access to an eluvian for some reason?). And so Tamlen disappeared because the darkspawn took him, and was trapped when Duncan destroyed the mirror (at least from that particular entrance/exit).
> 
> Not really pertinent to the story as a whole, but I had it in mind while writing this chapter and I wanted to share.
> 
> Anyway, thank you for reading!


	8. Arcana Imperium

“Not that I don’t believe the two of you,” Varric said with a clear tone of disbelief in his voice, “But when I’ve visited the Imperium before it’s always been a lot more intimidating dragon statues and a lot less… well, Dwarf-y.” He turned back towards them, the frown on his face just barely visible in the glow from the eluvian. “This is a _cave_.”

 

Fenris shook his head. “Catacombs,” he corrected. “There is a massive system of catacombs beneath Minrathous, so old that I understand they pre-date the first Archon. Any records of their size have been lost, and most of the bodies interred here are now no more than dust.”

 

Dorian snapped out of his stupor and summoned a thread of magic to his staff, illuminating more of the hall with a pale light. “There are a few entrances leading to the surface around Minrathous – very popular for historical sightseeing and showing bored upper-class schoolchildren the ancient wonders of our great Tevinter culture,” he said facetiously as his gaze travelled over the time-smoothed stone, the carvings in the pillars dulled to nearly nothing. “This area is not nearly so well-preserved.”

 

Varric huffed. “And everybody says Nevarrans are obsessed with death.”

 

“Some cellars in the city connect to these passages. Usually, they’re kept walled off, but Magisters have been known to use them as secret rooms to hide their darkest magic,” Fenris added with a knowing disgust in his voice, upper lip curled in revulsion. “I’ve heard of slaves using them as escape tunnels as well, but that is often… unsuccessful.”

 

Merrill winced at the implications in his words – she had seen more and more of what slavers would do over the years, knew how the hunters had treated Fenris – but her voice held a tone of neutral curiosity. “Where do you suppose this one leads?”

 

“There’s no way to say,” Dorian replied. “But since we’ve come this far…”

 

They walked single file away from the eluvian and down the narrow passage, following the subtle draft, the oppressive darkness broken only by the dim light from Dorian’s staff. Eventually they reached a dead end. The passage made a sharp turn to the left, but the intersecting hall had completely collapsed, filled with so much earth and rubble as to be impassable. A slow trickle of water ran from a fissure in the rock along the rutted out wall to the right, gradually digging a hole in the floor as it dripped down from when it caught on the edge of a broad crack just wide enough for a person to squeeze through.

 

Merrill leaned in to peer into the darkness on the other side, feeling the draft that channeled through against her face. She ignited a tiny flame in her hand and held it before her to light the way.

 

“It’s a little room. The far wall is brick, and there’s a sort of… panel, in the middle,” she said, and then paused to take a deep breath. “I’m going in.”

 

She slipped through the gap, and the others reluctantly followed her into a space just barely large enough for the four of them to stand. The panel was a relatively small square placed about halfway up the wall, with hinges on one side and a latch on the other.

 

“A hatch?” Fenris said.

 

“I’m not really sure I want to know what’s on the other side of that,” Varric interjected. He shifted where he stood, as if considering something, before pulling the crossbow from his back and readying a bolt, training it on the panel. “Sparkler, you’re the closest. Why don’t you do the honours?”

 

Dorian reached over and unhooked the latch, chewing at the inside of his lip nervously, his every muscle pulled taut. Carefully, slowly, he pushed the panel outwards. As it pulled away from the wall, he noticed that the front was lined with bricks filed down to an impossible thinness in order to blend seamlessly with those around it – a false wall. He wondered absently if this was the kind of secret room that Fenris had mentioned, and shuddered.

 

The hatch opened a few inches above the stone floor of an equally dark but much larger room. They all held their breath for a moment that felt like an eternity, Varric aiming squarely into the room – but when there was no sound or motion, he dropped his aim.

 

“Boost me up through,” Varric said plainly, shouldering past the others and up to the hatch. “I’ll take a quick look around and let you know if it’s safe.”

 

“Are you certain about this, Varric?” Dorian asked in weak protest. He didn't want a friend to put himself in danger, but he also had no desire to go first.

 

“Not really, but Bianca’s the adventurous type, and I could never refuse her,” Varric replied, and Dorian could almost feel the wink he shot his way.

 

Fenris stepped forward to help Dorian lift him up through the hatch. He crept off once inside, disappearing into the darkness for a short while, before appearing before them again.

 

“It’s a storage cellar,” Varric reported, kneeling down in front of the hatch. “Pretty huge. Lots of crates full of things that seem too random for this to be any kind of commercial building, though. And nobody’s been down here in years, judging by the dust and cobwebs.” He pointed over his shoulder with his thumb. “There’s a stairwell over there, if we feel like tempting fate.”

 

“I think I’d like to tempt fate,” Merrill replied cheerfully, squeezing between Fenris and Dorian to pull herself up into the room. Fenris sighed.

 

Everything in the room was coated in a thick layer of dust, including the floor. It swirled into the air as their steps disturbed it, making their eyes water painfully, though Dorian couldn’t help the little swell of satisfaction he felt when it made Fenris sneeze unbecomingly. The stairwell Varric mentioned stood in one corner, leading up to a heavy wooden door.

 

They repeated the same formula they had when opening the hatch: Dorian stood off to one side and pulled the door slowly open while Varric aimed his crossbow blindly into the space beyond the doorway. When they were met only with silence and stillness, Varric dropped his aim and they continued cautiously on.

 

They found themselves in a narrow corridor with walls of deeply tinted wood paneling. A dim glow of sunlight filtered in from somewhere off to the left, possibly coming in from under a door.

 

A wave of uncomfortable familiarity washed over Fenris. “Service corridors. To keep those unsightly slaves and servants as invisible to the important people as possible,” he said, voice dripping with contempt. “We’re in the home of a Magister, and if that Magister is worth anything, these corridors will run unbroken throughout the entire estate.”

 

“At least the magic mirror spit us out in the least conspicuous place we could be while trespassing in a Magister’s house,” Varric said with a nervous huff of a laugh.

 

“This room is a library!” Merrill suddenly exclaimed from a short distance down the hall, where she was holding a door open just a crack and peering inside. “There’s nobody there,” she added when she noticed the startled looks on Dorian and Varric’s faces and the incredulous glare that Fenris was shooting her. “I don’t think anybody lives here. There are dust cloths over all the furniture.”

 

Dorian trailed behind the others, a sinking feeling he could not explain in the pit of his stomach as Merrill opened the door fully and ushered Varric and Fenris inside. When Dorian stepped into the doorway, he stopped short, the blood in his veins turning to ice as his eyes scanned over the familiar shelves lined with that well-used collection of books that he knew better than anything.

 

“Is something wrong, Dorian?” Merrill asked. The others spun back around, gazes snapping to Dorian’s face.

 

“It can’t be,” he breathed. He rushed forward into the room as if guided by some force that was not his own will, blinded to the presence of the others as he briskly crossed the library and threw open the large double doors that lead into the main hall.

 

“It can’t be,” he repeated, louder this time, his gaze trailing up the marble staircase to a wide corridor that he knew lead to the bedrooms, then flitting across the spacious hall to the large-but-not-too-lavish front door he’d entered and exited a thousand times, to smaller sets of doors that lead to the dining room, the sitting room, the study…

 

Fenris’s voice hissed out his name from somewhere beside him, echoing through his head like a dream. He was dimly aware of the pulling sensation of lyrium as his wrist was snatched up, grip rough and impatient. He used that tight grasp on his wrist as a point of contact to ground himself, forcing himself to draw a deep, slow breath, letting it all sink in through the haze of disbelief. Tension drained from his shoulders.

 

“I take it you know the person that owns this place,” Varric said carefully.

 

Dorian swallowed around the lump in his throat, drawing strength from the crushing grip that remained on his wrist, too comforting to be painful. “Technically,” he began, mouth feeling impossibly dry, “ _I_ own this place.”

 

Fenris’s hand twitched harshly before falling away from Dorian’s wrist, and Dorian had to stop himself from grabbing it and putting it back.

 

Merrill’s eyes went wide. “This is your house?”

 

Dorian shook his head. “Not exactly. It belonged to Alexius,” he explained, frowning at the tremble he felt in his lips. “My mentor. He was stripped of his titles in Tevinter for his crimes, and without…” He swallowed thickly. “…without an heir to inherit his belongings, his will specified that they go to me.”

 

“That hidden room—” Fenris began, but Dorian cut him off.

 

“No,” he said with finality, frown deepening. “Alexius couldn’t have known.”

 

“Shit,” Varric breathed. “So let me get this straight. We went through a magic mirror and into a secret passage that leads from Daisy’s house in Kirkwall to a house that Sparkler here just happens to own in the heart of the most dangerous city in the Tevinter Imperium. Am I getting this right?”

 

“Apparently,” Fenris said, an unamused twitch pulling at his upper lip.

 

Varric gave a breathy whistle and shook his head. “I could never write something like this into a story. Nobody would ever believe it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'd been toying with the idea of hidden underground ruins below the Alexius estate, and then I read [Paying the Ferryman](http://blog.bioware.com/2015/06/02/8316/) and apparently there really are catacombs connected to cellars in Minrathous. So that worked out well.


	9. To Melt a Snowflake

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Quick warning for some Pavus family homophobia in this chapter.

A few weeks had passed since their journey through the eluvians to Minrathous. They had returned immediately after discovering that the path led to Alexius’s old estate, at Dorian’s insistence that it would be to dangerous to linger and Fenris’s unease and Merrill’s suggestion that Viscount Tethras should not suddenly disappear for more than a few hours at a time.

 

Dorian returned to Kirkwall with them despite the fact that his destination was Minrathous. It would be too suspicious for him to be in the city without having been seen traveling there, or within such a brief time of being in the Free Marches. He had to go about the journey the mundane, uninteresting way – which gave him plenty of time to stew in his dread for the day he would inevitably be spending in Qarinus.

 

The heat and humidity in Qarinus was even more stifling than Dorian remembered, the heavy moisture in the air like a thick blanket being wrapped too tightly around him, suffocating him.

 

“Too much time down south. I’m practically Fereldan now. Next thing you know I’ll be enjoying bland food and wearing coarse fabrics and smelling of dog, and wouldn’t that be a sight in the Magisterium?” he muttered under his breath, rambling without any real meaning in an attempt to relax as he paced before the front gate to his family’s estate, wringing his hands so hard his skin ached. This was his childhood home, but now it made him so nervous that he would have almost preferred facing down Corypheus again.

 

It was the images that replayed through his mind when he was here, taunting him on an endless loop, still sharp even after the passing of years. His father’s disappointed voice framing hateful words masquerading as love, “Can’t you see that your behaviour is a cry for help, Dorian?” and “Something is broken, but we can fix it. I can help you.” His mother’s face, eyes brimming with a resigned sorrow, giving him one last mournful glance before she turned and disappeared down the hall. Everything so unusually still, so bizarrely quiet. The knife half-hidden beneath pages of carefully copied notes on the table, its sharp edge gleaming in the firelight, and the arcane symbols chalked onto the floor that finally opened his reluctant eyes to what was happening. Demanding answers but only getting honey-coated lies, cold and distant disgust. Running, running out the door and through the dark streets with the voice of a parent he had always admired, trusted, wanted to please, spitting curses at his heels.

 

The betrayal that turned to ash in his throat, no longer fresh and burning hot but still enough to leave him choking.

 

He stopped his pacing and squeezed his eyes shut, trying to replace it with something else. If he concentrated, he could feel a hand grasping his wrist impossibly tightly as another voice, a deep and rough resonance that he could feel rumbling in his chest, rose up in his mind. He tried to imagine that voice saying words he needed to hear: _It’s only your mother, fool_. Not something he really thought Fenris would say – rather, it was easier to imagine Fenris encouraging him to leave – but it helped nonetheless.

 

Drawing strength from that thought, Dorian raised his hand and rapped on the door.

 

The servant that answered greeted him as if he still belonged here. “Master Dorian,” the old man said with a cordial bow, just as he always had since days when they were both much younger. “Lady Aquinea awaits you on the veranda, for tea.”

 

Dorian felt himself thank the man automatically as he stepped inside. He moved through the house as if in a daze, letting the details blur as a way of keeping it all far away, where it could not hurt him. A cup of milky spiced tea was placed before him as he slipped into a seat across from his mother on the veranda while she regarded him distantly, fanning herself with a lavish folding fan.

 

“Finally back, I see,” she said, and her tone was not unkind, but it was not particularly welcoming either. “I’ve already settled most of Halward’s affairs, save those which you must attend to.”

 

Dorian opened his mouth to defend himself, but his mother cut him off with a resigned sigh and a look full of more sympathy than he had anticipated.

 

“I know how that sounded, but I’m not blaming you for not being here,” she said, and sighed again. “In fact, I’m glad you were not, because it ensured your safety. I meant for it to be… reassuring, that you would not have to do it all yourself.” She dropped her fan to the table and gestured at the cup sitting before him. “I’m not very good at this.”

 

Dorian obediently took a sip of the tea. It had been left to steep for too long, bitter even through the milk and spices. The silence was profoundly uncomfortable.

 

“How are you?” he asked.

 

“I’m fine,” she replied dismissively. She gave him a long look then, as if she could see right through him and into his mind. Concern flashed over her face before her expression settled into something unreadable. Dorian had always found her rather aloof, though now it seemed she was struggling to maintain it. “You missed the funeral,” she added plainly.

 

Not knowing how to respond to that, Dorian took another sip of tea.

 

Aquinea sighed again as she resumed fanning herself. “I’ll have the paperwork outlining the property you inherited brought to you before you leave. You’ll have to go to Minrathous to get everything straightened out with the Magisterium.”

 

“I understand,” Dorian replied through the tension drawn tight in his chest. “I was planning to head to Minrathous anyway.”

 

His mother gave a small, distracted hum of acknowledgement before folding her fan and setting it aside again. She turned her face away, staring at the iron latticework that separated the veranda from the gardens beyond, brows furrowed as if searching for something.

 

“He wanted your forgiveness, you know,” she said suddenly, her voice sounding to Dorian as if it had echoed from far away.

 

“I know,” he said.

 

“You have a chance now, Dorian,” she began, swallowing thickly before continuing, “He believed in you. He believed that you could find your way again. You could make it up to him.”

 

Her words struck like a blow to the chest. Dorian scoffed, trying and failing to sound flippant, frustrated by the jagged edge present in his voice. “’Make it up to him’?” he repeated incredulously, unable to hide the mix of anger and hurt that boiled below the surface.

 

His mother still looked pointedly away from him. “I know you want different things, but sometimes, Dorian…” She paused, gripping her fan with both hands, knuckles going white. “Sometimes, what you want doesn’t matter.”

 

Always the same thing. Dorian kept silent, knowing that arguing was pointless. He stared out over the garden – perfectly manicured, as always – wishing he could just set fire to the whole blighted thing. His mind wandered to his journey across the Nocen Sea to Minrathous in just over an hour, and for the first time in his life he looked forward to getting on a boat.

 

-

 

The little brass bell hanging above the entrance to Varania’s shop chimed as Dorian stepped inside. Varania’s assistant looked up and froze, the measuring tape she held falling unceremoniously from her hands to unroll across the floor.

 

“A-Altus Pavus!” she squeaked, hurriedly returning a pin held between her teeth to the pincushion. “I’m so sorry! It’s lovely to see you again!”

 

Dorian gave her an encouraging smile as he knelt to pick up the measuring tape. “It’s lovely to see you too, Junia,” he replied gently, wishing he knew how to make her feel more at ease. He’d visited Varania several times over the past few years, and still the girl was as nervous and jumpy as the first time he’d walked into the shop.

 

“I’m so sorry,” she repeated as Dorian wound the measuring tape back up and handed it back to her.

 

“It’s quite alright,” he insisted.

 

“Hello, Dorian,” Varania said as she stepped into the room, her smile guarded but fond. Junia took the opportunity to turn away in her shyness, hiding behind her wildly curly hair.

 

Some of the lingering bitterness from his conversation with his mother evaporated. Varania always had a bit of a melancholy air about her, but she was always welcoming, and Dorian wondered at the fact that he felt more familial warmth from this woman than he ever did from his real family.

 

“I was wondering if you had a moment to talk,” he said. “Business, and all that.”

 

Varania nodded. “Always,” she replied sincerely. “Junia, watch the shop, please.”

 

They headed into the back room, where Varania gestured for Dorian to take a seat before dropping wearily into a chair herself.

 

“I have something of a proposition for you,” Dorian began before Varania could say anything. She quirked an eyebrow up, and Dorian continued, “I’ve, well… I’ve recently become a Magister, and I’d like you to be my apprentice.”

 

Varania frowned and sat up straighter in her seat. “This isn’t the first time I’ve been offered this,” she said carefully.

 

Dorian bit the inside of his lip. “I’m aware,” he replied gently, “Which is why I want you to know that my motivations aren’t exactly selfless. I’m hoping that taking on an apprentice will satisfy my mother to some extent. Keep her off my back, I suppose. And in all honesty I’ll need every bit of political support I can get, even in the form of someone without an old Tevinter family to fall back upon.” He thought for a moment, and then leaned closer. “I know Danarius said he would make you a Magister, but I’ll be honest with you. It’s certainly possible in theory, but in practice it’s significantly more difficult, as things often are. There are stuffy old fossils in the Magisterium that will object to you even being my _apprentice_ , let alone sharing their title.”

 

“You’re saying it will be dangerous,” Varania said plainly.

 

“It will. But we can help each other, and I can protect you, and teach you to protect yourself,” Dorian said. “At any rate, I only ask that you consider it. I don’t want you agreeing to this if it’s not what you want.”

 

Varania regarded him thoughtfully. “I will have to think on it,” she replied, and then added with a conspiratorial grin, “My brother would not like it.”

 

Dorian let out a surprised laugh. “An appealing side benefit!”

 

Varania’s grin widened, but faltered, fading from her face. She let out a long breath. “I’ve actually been hoping to see you soon, because there is something I’d like to ask your help with,” she admitted.

 

“I’ll do whatever I can,” Dorian offered.

 

Varania gave a quick glance around the room, as if checking to make sure they weren’t being watched. “It’s about my brother,” she explained. “There have been… people, coming to me and asking about him.”

 

Dorian furrowed his brows. “People?” he asked. “Is someone bothering you? Are you alright?”

 

“I’m fine,” she answered, shaking her head. “I’m only worried about my brother. I want to talk to him about this, but I’m afraid that if I write him someone will find it and read it. I was wondering if you could get a message to him somehow.”

 

“Actually,” Dorian said, “I may have a way for you to speak to him yourself.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dorian's story really resonated with me as I'm sure it does with a lot of other LGBT+ people who have had to deal with that feeling of wondering if the love and respect of the people around you is based on false assumptions about who you are, and the fear about how that might change if they knew, even if they wouldn't go as far as Halward Pavus with trying to "fix" you. I tried to draw on that feeling and I hope I was successful.
> 
> Also I love Varania and I want to give her everything.
> 
> Thank you for reading this far and please comment if you have any thoughts!


	10. Vir Fen

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This update is a little bit late, so if anybody is still reading, please excuse me.

“You know, I’m still fairly shocked you agreed to use this thing,” Dorian said into the sending crystal, voice low. “Dangerous, volatile magical artifacts, and all that.”

 

“That is the reason I agreed. To shock you,” Fenris deadpanned. “I exist only to keep you on your toes.”

 

Dorian let out a peal of laughter. “I’d rather you curl my toes,” he said with a devilish grin.

 

Fenris huffed dismissively. “You sound like Isabela.”

 

“Credit where credit is due! Isabela is a charming woman. Not quite so charming as I, but charming nonetheless.”

 

“Perhaps,” Fenris said plainly.

 

“You wound me,” Dorian replied, before trailing off into a sigh, dropping the playful tone. “As delightful as this banter is, it is not the reason I contacted you.”

 

Fenris gave a questioning hum, and Dorian allowed himself to revel in the deep roughness of his voice for just a moment before he spoke again.

 

“Where are you now?”

 

“I’m still in Tantervale,” Fenris replied.

 

“Right where I left you, then?” Dorian mused, giving at little smile at the fact that Fenris had accompanied him for the first part of his journey back, before he crossed the border into Tevinter, insisting all the way that he had business in Tantervale anyway. There had still been a palpable distance between them, but against every instinct that had been ingrained into Dorian’s mind from when he was old enough to realize he was different, it gave him hope.

 

“I found some… pests, that needed to be dispatched. I’m leaving for Starkhaven to visit an old friend tomorrow,” Fenris explained, the sound of bed sheets rustling in the background. “What is it you need, Dorian?”

 

“Would you be willing to postpone that visit to Starkhaven to see your sister instead?”

 

Fenris was silent for a moment. “In—”

 

“In Minrathous, yes,” Dorian interrupted. He frowned, and then added carefully, pointedly, “You know how to get here, do you not?”

 

Fenris exhaled deeply. “I do,” he replied, echoing Dorian’s caution, “But the way is dangerous.”

 

“I understand. But with caution, I believe it will be fine,” Dorian said.

 

Fenris did not speak for a few moments. The sound of sheets rustling came again, followed by muffled footsteps. “Fine,” he said at last. “I will need to write my friend a letter, but I will leave tomorrow as soon as that is sent.” More rustling of fabric, and the crisp sound of paper.

 

“I eagerly await your arrival,” Dorian replied before withdrawing his magic from the crystal, cutting the connection.

 

-

 

“She says she’s from a group called the Vir Fen,” Varania said, lips carefully forming the unfamiliar Elven words.

 

“The… ‘wolf’s path’?” Fenris’s brows furrowed even deeper, exaggerated by the heavy shadows cast by the newly lit fire.

 

Dorian joined them at the table, the fireplace having been tended to. The windowless cellar room was dark, cold, and musty. He hated feeling as if he was keeping Fenris trapped in these dusty old rooms, but with the large windows along every wall in most of the rest of the estate, it was the safest place for him to be.

 

“What do they want with Fenris?” he asked as he dropped into the uncomfortable wooden chair.

 

“I do not know. They’ve refused to tell me anything. But the questions they ask…” Varania trailed off, eyes meeting Fenris’s. She frowned as she continued, “They know a worrying amount about you. Your escape, your time in Kirkwall…”

 

Fenris narrowed his eyes. “Have they hurt you? Threatened you?”

 

Varania shook her head. “No, not really,” she replied. “When I refuse to answer the agent’s questions, she tells me that I am abandoning slaves to suffer, that their blood is on my hands, but then she simply leaves and comes back another night.”

 

“Fenris, you escaped from one of the more powerful Magisters in recent memory. You even managed to kill the man,” Dorian mused. “Perhaps they wish to learn to emulate you. Could you know some information that they might be searching for?”

 

“I can’t imagine that I do,” Fenris replied. “Danarius is dead and his estate stands empty. And the circumstances of my escape were… unusual.”

 

“Perhaps they do not know that,” Dorian said. “Or perhaps they are more interested in your reputation than what you may actually know.”

 

There was clear hesitance in Fenris’s face, the twist of his mouth, but his eyes held a spark of something else. “You think they want me to incite a rebellion,” he supplied.

 

Varania shook her head carefully, the motion so slight it was hardly visible in the shifting shadows of the firelight. “It’s possible, but…” she said vaguely, staring at her hands folded in her lap for a moment before looking up. “There have been rumors. I imagine you’ve heard them, Dorian. People are saying that slaves are going missing, one or two at a time, so that the Magisters don’t notice at first.”

 

“Slaves escape all the time,” Fenris interrupted dismissively.

 

“And most of them are caught,” Varania added. “But none of these slaves have been caught.”

 

“You know, Magister Anodatus has been making a fuss at every senate meeting about how he thinks his slaves are being stolen. Accusing anyone and everyone that pops into that delusional old head of his,” Dorian said, lightly tapping his fingers on the tabletop. “No one believes him, of course. I was beginning to think someone would be fabricating a story to get him executed by the Templars soon, if only to shut him up, but others with moderately better reputations have started making similar claims, so perhaps…”

 

“You think this Vir Fen is responsible?” Fenris asked.

 

“It’s possible, is it not?” Dorian replied, and then wrinkled his nose in disgust. “Anodatus is notorious for bleeding his slaves. So either he’s been killing them and lying to cover it up, or this Vir Fen is helping them escape. The latter is certainly a more appealing thought, at the very least.”

 

Silence descended over them. Varania chewed at her lip, her mind tracing over every possibility, ever rumor she had heard.

 

“Anodatus was the first to complain of missing slaves, right?” she said after a moment. When Dorian nodded, she continued, “Perhaps they started with Anodatus because they _knew_ no one would believe him.”

 

Dorian blinked. “That’s… a very sound strategy.”

 

“I believe I would like to meet these people,” Fenris said, a smirk pulling of one corner of his lips.

 

-

 

Every Magisterial family kept slaves and servants, but the Alexius family had always kept very few. Once Dorian had acquired the estate he saw them freed, those who needed work hired by Maevaris or other members of the Lucerni, the paid servants re-hired by other families. At the time he hadn’t seen much point in keeping anyone to look after an empty house – the Pavus family kept a relatively modest second home in Minrathous, so he did not need to live at the Alexius estate – but now, as he rummaged through storage looking for the utensils he would need to _attempt_ to cook something, he wished that he’d kept one or two servants here. Or at the very least, that he had brought the cook from his own home.

 

He knew it was a foolish thought. It was never truly safe to trust anyone in Tevinter, even a servant, especially when harbouring a fugitive. But with each… kitchen thing of unknown function he pulled from the storage trunk, he grew more and more daunted. He had cooked before, but that was while he fled south, or at camps with the Inquisition – never in a proper kitchen.

 

He’d considered asking Fenris for help, but it didn’t seem right after all the danger Dorian was putting him in, and besides, he wasn’t certain Fenris knew any better than he did. As much as the two of them would probably be content with drinking for dinner, Dorian had decided he wouldn’t be allowing that.

 

Dorian gathered up anything he thought he could work with: some pots and pans, knives and spoons, all stacked precariously inside a crate that he struggled to grip properly as he navigated the narrow halls back to the kitchen. There was an undeniable novelty to it – cooking for a lover (whether that description still rang true or not), alone in a mansion, like some kind of terrible romance story – and Dorian couldn’t help but to feel somehow thrilled by it all, despite himself.

 

Distracted by his thoughts, Dorian did not notice that he was not alone until small but rough hands snatched his wrist and pulled sharply downwards. Unprepared, he was sent stumbling to his knees, the crate in his grasp slamming to the ground, supplies spilling down the corridor. His right arm was twisted around behind his back, his body slammed against the wall to the left to pin his other arm against his chest, a bony knee pressing into his spine. A chill shot up his back, spreading like ice through his veins. A sharp knife came to rest against his throat.

 

“Magister,” a young woman’s voice hissed into his ear, burning with rage. “Tell me how you can possess the wolf.”

 

“What?” he replied without thinking, dumbfounded.

 

The knife pressed harder against his neck, the blade unbearably close to breaking skin. “I see that he is in your wretched house,” she spat. Her Tevene was awkward, the syllables falling heavily from her tongue as if her thick Orlesian accent coated them like lead, “And he is treating you as a friend. But how can that be? What have you done to him, Magister? What evil magic have you used?”


	11. The Intruder

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Now with some minor edits to hopefully make some things clearer (specifically, at the beginning of chapter 9). I'll try to pay more attention to make sure I don't forget to include any details again, but please do let me know if anything is confusing!

A series of crashes rang out from somewhere down the next hall. Fenris broke into a sprint, blindly rushing towards the sound.

 

Someone must have followed Dorian and Varania here, and then waited for Varania to leave so that they could ambush Dorian while he was alone. Fenris’s vision went blurry as he ran, as if the world around him wasn’t real at all. He _knew_ Dorian had been taking too long to simply find some supplies. He should have realized sooner, should have insisted on going with him –

 

Fenris skidded to a halt as he rounded the next corner. He froze, every muscle in his body wound too tightly to move, save the shaking of his hands.

 

A short distance ahead, a young elven woman had Dorian pinned against the wall with a knife to his throat. Her gaze snapped up to Fenris, something dangerous gleaming in her eyes as she laced her free hand through Dorian’s hair and jerked his head harshly back, the knife catching the dim light as she pressed it harder against his skin.

 

“Do not move,” she demanded in heavily accented Tevene, as if it needed to be said.

 

Fenris grit his teeth and clenched his fists, nails digging into his palms as he forced his lyrium into light. The attacker flinched at the sudden brightness, her knife slipping against Dorian’s throat just enough to barely break skin, drawing a few tiny droplets of blood to the surface.

 

“So it is true. You are Fenris. The wolf.”

 

“Release him,” Fenris growled.

 

“Why?” she demanded, speaking now in Common to match Fenris, the sneer on her face exaggerated by a deep scar that pulled at her upper lip at a sharp upward angle. “Why would you defend such a man? What has he done to you? Does he control you with blood magic?”

 

Dorian let out a humourless bark of laughter before he could stop himself. The knife dug deeper into his skin, drawing more blood to bead against the blade.

 

“He has done no such thing,” Fenris spat, hazarding a step forwards. “And you will release him.”

 

The attacker narrowed her eyes. Her grip on the knife tightened, preparing to make a deep cut. But before she could do anything, Fenris surged forward, plunging a hand into her chest. He allowed his aim to be deliberately off, angled towards her right, near the junction of her arm and shoulder – enough to frighten her, but likely non-fatal should he lose control of his markings again.

 

She opened her mouth as if to scream, but all the came out was a weak, choked gasp.

 

“Release him,” Fenris ground out again, not trusting himself to say more, concentrating as hard as he could to keep his markings under control.

 

She watched his face with impossibly wide eyes as she let the knife clatter to the floor. She stumbled backwards, unharmed but frantic, eyes darting between Fenris and her chest as she pressed her hands against her dark skin, searching desperately for a wound that was not there. Dorian leapt to his feet and rushed to her other side, quickly casting an array of fire glyphs that surrounded her in all directions to block her exit. Fenris allowed his markings to flicker out.

 

“I’m sure this is just a misunderstanding, and later we’ll all laugh about it over tea,” Dorian said, too tense to truly be in good humour.

 

The woman ignored him, eyes downcast and back to the wall, muttering something in Orlesian under her breath. Her gaze drifted up to Fenris’s face as she raised her hands palm forward in surrender. “I have been looking for you,” she said. “I do not wish to fight you.”

 

“Do you still think I’m enthralled by blood magic?” Fenris asked with narrowed eyes.

 

Her lip twitched around the deep scar. “No,” she said. “I see this Magister does not command you. But why are you with such a man?”

 

“Dorian is…” Fenris began, eyes flitting up to Dorian for just a moment with a glimmer of something pained, something uncertain, before he looked pointedly away again, “…a trustworthy ally.”

 

“I see,” she said plainly.

 

“You are with the Vir Fen,” Fenris said. “You look like the agent my sister described.”

 

“Yes.”

 

“Why were you looking for me?”

 

She drew in a sharp breath and slowly let it out again. “We know of you from the book. _Tale of the Champion_.”

 

Dorian’s eyebrows rose.

 

Fenris groaned. Of course it was the blighted _Tale of the Champion_. “And that is why you were harassing my sister? Because you read about me in a book?”

 

“It is more than that,” she said, and frowned. “We were inspired by you to help other slaves to freedom, but…” She muttered something in Orlesian under her breath again, brows furrowed as if trying to translate it in her head. “You may think me a fool to say it, but I saw you in a dream. I knew you were coming to Tevinter. We know you can help.”

 

Fenris opened his mouth as if he wanted to say something, but no words came out. Against his better judgment, the tension began to lift from his shoulders.

 

“‘We’?” Dorian asked when Fenris remained silent.

 

The woman glanced at him. “My… associate, and I.” She let out a breath. “I will start over. My name is Sage. I am a slave owned by a Magister named Fulvius, and so I do not have much time until my absence is noticed.”

 

“Fulvius,” Dorian muttered. “I know of him. He skips most of the sessions of the Magisterium, much to the delight of anyone with actual ambition.”

 

Sage nodded. “A toothless man. Hardly even guards his slaves. I am lucky, if a slave can be lucky,” she said, before pointedly meeting Fenris’s gaze. “Can you trust me?”

 

Fenris scoffed. “You’ve given me very little reason to trust you.”

 

“I know,” Sage replied simply. “But I also know you understand my actions, and I know you wish to help. If you let me leave, I will return here in three days’ time, after midnight, and we can properly discuss what needs to be done.”

 

Fenris glanced from Sage’s resolute expression to the small cut across Dorian’s throat, where the thin streams of blood that trailed down his neck had already dried. Dorian raised his eyebrows and gave a weak smile – _I am fine, the decision is yours_ – and let the glyphs on the ground around them fade away.

 

With a sigh, Fenris stepped aside. “Do not make me regret this,” he said sternly. Sage gave a nod and hurried off.

 

-

 

“I should not have let her go,” Fenris said for what Dorian was certain was the hundredth time.

 

Dorian glanced up from the washbasin resting on the vanity. He could see Fenris reflected in the mirror where he stood behind him, just close enough to watch carefully as Dorian dabbed at the cut on his neck but not so close as to be too obvious about it. Not that Dorian couldn’t tell exactly what he was doing.

 

“We cannot be certain the knife wasn’t poisoned,” Fenris said, clenching and unclenching his fists.

 

“If I start turning blue and vomiting up my insides, I promise you’ll be the first to know,” Dorian replied flippantly. The soap slipped out of Dorian’s fingers, ricocheted off the side of the basin, and landed in the bottom, sending water splashing over the sides. “ _Kaffas_.”

 

Fenris began to pace.

 

Dorian sighed as he fished the soap out of the basin. “You realize this is about as lethal of an injury as a scraped knee, yes? I don’t understand why you’re fussing about it so much.”

 

“I am _not_ fussing about it,” Fenris spat.

 

Fenris paced for a few more moments as Dorian watched him, leaving the soapsuds drying on his neck, forgotten. Fenris halted his pacing and let a frustrated groan rumble at the back of his throat before stepping up to the vanity. He snatched a towel, wet it, grabbed Dorian by the shoulder, and irately began to rinse the soap away. Dorian bit back the urge to point out that cleaning the wound for him most definitely counted as fussing about it.

 

“I can heal it if you want,” Dorian offered sarcastically when the instinct to be flippant became too much to ignore. “I have no talent for healing, as you know, so it will probably scar if I heal it, but I am more than willing to live with a scar if it will make you _relax_.”

 

Fenris tossed the towel onto the vanity and scowled. “ _Festis bei umo ca_ —”

 

The rest of the curse was muffled by Dorian’s lips pushing suddenly and unforgivingly against his own. Fenris froze for a moment – long enough that Dorian nearly pulled away to apologize for doing something so rash, so unfair – before Fenris threw himself fervently into the kiss, snaking a hand up to grasp Dorian’s hair as his other hand wandered, pulling at Dorian’s clothing, as if whatever had been holding him back had finally snapped. Dorian gave a shuddering gasp against Fenris’s lips.

 

It was a terrible idea. Dorian knew that. He should not have started it. But every objection his mind could come up with was lost, drowned out by sensation – the static energy that buzzed through his entire body, the warmth of Fenris’s mouth on his neck and breath on his ear, the rolling waves of heat that surged up inside him to send his muscles trembling with want, the way his clothing suddenly felt so constrictive just before it was pulled from his body, the spike of electricity that arced through his every nerve at the sight of Fenris’s glazed eyes.

 

Time moved impossibly quickly. Fenris’s hands on him were everything, encouraging but not pushing, hesitant and not at the same time, gentler than someone as unsubtle as Fenris had any right to be. At some point they had moved into the bedroom; Dorian couldn’t even remember. He couldn’t think. There was only the reassuring darkness that encompassed them as they fell onto the sheets, the deep sounds that escaped Fenris’s lips muffled against the skin at the junction of Dorian’s neck, the heat of Fenris’s body moving against his, too fast, much too fast.

 

Like the trysts he used to have before Alexius dragged him from that brothel in the Minrathous slums and made him live up to his potential. Unlit rooms, few words exchanged, men he hardly knew.

 

And when Dorian awoke the next morning, Fenris was gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm going to be moving soon, so there will likely be a delay before I can post the next chapter. Thank you for your patience!


	12. Pieces Falling into Place

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I knew there would be a delay before I could post this chapter, but I didn't think it would be an entire month long. Sorry about that!

“Are you and Dorian fighting?”

 

Fenris looked up from the cup of tea Merrill had insisted he drink to see her staring at him from across the table, eyebrows furrowed in concern. Hardly fifteen minutes had passed since he’d come slinking back through the eluvian and she was already prodding him.  “What are you talking about?” he asked flatly.

 

“It’s just… I noticed he gets so nervous when he talks about you,” Merrill said, the words rushing out like a flood, “And I don’t mean the good kind of nervous you get when your heart feels all fluttery and your face gets too warm. I mean the kind of nervous you get when you’re hiding something to keep other people from worrying about you.”

 

Fenris’s nose twitched, just barely – and Merrill knew she had hit upon something, though she wasn’t certain exactly what. “We are not fighting,” Fenris replied lamely.

 

“But there _is_ something going on between you,” Merrill insisted. “You both seem a bit… sad. Is it because he lives in Tevinter now?”

 

“He is a _magister_ ,” Fenris said, meeting Merrill’s gaze for emphasis.

 

Merrill blinked owlishly. “Does that really matter? He’s still Dorian.”

 

Fenris frowned and wrinkled his nose, irritated. “It _does_ matter.” He glared at the teacup sitting before him as if it was the one prodding him about things he didn’t want to talk about, and pushed it away.

 

“But you still want to be with him, don’t you?” Merrill asked, as if it could ever be that simple.

 

“Circumstance doesn’t care what you want. You should know that better than anyone,” Fenris spat. “And we are done talking about this.”

 

As if on cue, a knock sounded from the door. Merrill let out a heavy, exasperated sigh as she stood. “I don’t think you truly believe that,” she said, before stiffly heading to answer the knock.

 

“How could _you_ possibly know what I believe,” Fenris ground out under his breath, turning away to scowl at the wall.

 

The hinges of the door gave a thin creaking in protest as it was pulled open. “Hello, Merrill,” a voice said, the sound of it almost as thin as the hinges, and so distantly familiar. Fenris spun around to look, his irritation nearly forgotten.

 

“Hello,” Merrill replied, welcoming but hesitant. The word sounded more like a question than a greeting.

 

“Orana?” Fenris asked.

 

Fenris could understand why Merrill didn’t recognize her. She almost seemed to be a different person. Her long blonde hair that she used to wear pulled into a severe bun was now cropped very short, and she no longer wore the garish makeup that she used to wear even after Hadriana was no longer there to tell her to wear it, which changed the look of her face entirely. She looked sturdier as well, not only due to the hard leather armour she wore, but also because she no longer seemed to carry herself with a slave’s instinct to be as small as possible.

 

“Hello, Fenris,” Orana said with a fond smile.

 

Merrill gasped. “Oh, Creators! I’m so sorry, Orana. I didn’t recognize you.” She stepped aside, hurriedly ushering Orana inside to make up for her mistake.

 

“It’s fine,” Orana said, shaking her head reassuringly. Despite her confident stance, her voice still sounded so small. “You haven’t seen me since before the Chantry explosion, and I know I’ve changed quite a lot.”

 

“You have.” Merrill took a step back to look her over, and gave an approving nod. “You look very nice. Strong,” she said. “Please, take a seat. The furniture is cleaner than it looks. I’ll make you some tea!”

 

Orana grinned as she watched Merrill scurry from the room. “She is just like I remember her.”

 

“Indeed,” Fenris replied with a frustrated sigh.

 

Orana shook her head, amused. She pulled the greatsword from her back – small, for a two-handed weapon – and took the seat opposite Fenris.

 

“That’s a fine blade.”

 

Her face flushed pink. “Oh, thank you, but it’s really not,” she said. “I made it myself and I’m still just a novice.”

 

“You’re learning smithing?” Fenris asked.

 

“Yes,” Orana answered, staring down at the table before her, humble but not submissive. “A blacksmith in Starkhaven hired me as an assistant, and he’s been teaching me how to make swords, and how to fight with them when we have spare time. He was surprised how strong a former kitchen slave could be.”

 

Pride swelled in Fenris’s chest to see her doing so well, much like how he felt when he thought of Varania. A grin pulled at one corner of his mouth. “I do not doubt it.”

 

Merrill walked back into the room, carefully carrying a brimming teacup. “Starkhaven is a long way. I hope the journey wasn’t difficult,” she said, passing the cup to Orana.

 

“Thank you. My journey was fine,” Orana replied. “If I may get straight to business, I have a reason for coming here, but, well… it will probably sound crazy.”

 

Merrill and Fenris watched her expectantly. She took a deep breath and continued, “I had a dream. There was… a wolf of some kind, biting down on my sleeve and dragging me along to Kirkwall, to the Alienage.” She frowned as if she didn’t even it believe herself. “I thought little of it at first, but for weeks I haven’t been able to sleep for even a few moments without having that same dream, and I can hardly think about anything else while I’m awake. My employer is a very pious man, and he is convinced it’s some kind of message from the Maker. He sent me to bring a shipment to Kirkwall and asked me to check up on it while I am here.”

 

Fenris’s brows furrowed deeply. “I see.”

 

“Do you know what it means?” Orana asked, her voice coming out in a desperate rush.

 

Merrill looked from Orana to Fenris, and then back again. “I think we do,” she said.

 

-

 

“Perhaps Magister Pavus has some insights that could enlighten us,” Magister Anodatus boomed from the podium where he spoke.

 

Startled, Dorian dropped the pen that he most certainly had not been using to doodle while Anodatus spoke to the senate about his missing slaves for what must have been the hundredth time. “I’m afraid I’ve no idea what you mean, Magister Anodatus,” he said flippantly, more concerned with how his pen was falling down the graduated rows and disappearing under someone else’s seat than he was with whatever accusation the old fool was attempting to make. “I’m not particularly well-versed in the whatever baseless conspiracy theory you’ve chosen to bore us with today.”

 

A quiet commotion rose up like a tidal wave through the Magisterium: whispers about Dorian’s insolence from some, murmured agreement or barely contained laughter from others. Anodatus sneered.

 

“Perhaps we should not dismiss Magister Anodatus so readily,” Magister Varas called out, and everyone fell silent again. “We all know where Magister Pavus’s sympathies lie on this issue. Surely you’ve seen how he honours his respected father’s legacy by putting House Pavus into debt for his absurd insistence on paying wages to his rightful property, and now he seeks to pollute the Magisterium’s proud history by elevating a slave into our ranks.”

 

Varas met Dorian’s stunned gaze with a sadistic smirk, like a beast cornering its prey. “Not to mention,” Varas added, “the frankly disturbing rumors of his, ah, _relations_ with a fugitive slave during his time in the South.”

 

Dorian opened his mouth to protest, but a young magister whose name he could not remember seated across the aisle interrupted him. “The same fugitive slave who murdered Magisters Danarius and Hadriana in cold blood, as you may recall.”

 

Another wave of murmured uproar rushed through the Magisterium. Dorian steeled his face to look as blank and impassive as possible to avoid giving these vultures anything else to pounce upon. He had allowed himself to be caught unprepared, and things had gotten very dangerous very suddenly. Anodatus was a washed-up nobody, but Varas was one of the more powerful members of the Magisterium. And that younger man…

 

Maevaris patted Dorian’s arm from the seat beside him and gave him a nod as if to say, _I’ll take care of this_. “Is this how the Magisterium, pride of the great Tevinter Imperium, operates?” she projected over the commotion, standing from her seat to look as imposing as she did graceful. “By giving rumor the weight of fact? By brandishing baseless accusations that do nothing but waste our time when real work could be getting done?”

 

“And how do you propose to solve this issue, Magister Tilani?” Anodatus spat, narrowing his eyes at her in disgust. “I would love to hear it.”

 

“I would like to remind Magister Anodatus that the Magisterium does not investigate crimes, and that if he wants his concerns about kidnapped slaves resolved he must go through the proper authorities,” she said. “And I propose that we move on to whatever is next on our agenda, so that we may all go home sometime today.”

 

“You—” Anodatus began, but the senate moderator cut him off with a wave of his hand.

 

“All in agreement with Magister Tilani’s proposal to move on to the next motion?”

 

An overwhelming number called out an affirmative, and Maevaris sat back down with a smug little grin at Anodatus, who scowled back before returning to his seat.

 

Dorian leaned over. “Mae,” he whispered, but she shushed him.

 

“Don’t thank me just yet,” she whispered back. “I’ve only delayed the inevitable.”


	13. As if the People Had Taken Wing

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've had this chapter ready for months but I managed to completely forget about it...
> 
> This story will most likely be slow to update from here on, but hopefully not 6-months-between-chapters slow.

True to her word, Sage reappeared three days later shortly after midnight, clad in a dark hooded cloak with the telltale sharp, acidic smell of a stealth flask lingering on her. This time she was accompanied by another, similarly dressed with a heavy hood obscuring her face, but impossibly tall. The two of them had slipped inside unnoticed, finding Dorian and Fenris seated at a table in one of the dark basement rooms, waiting.

 

The tall woman slowly lowered her hood to reveal deep greyish skin and two very short, broken-off horns. Her eyes locked onto Dorian’s gaze with a dangerous spark as if daring him to say something negative. “My name is Vaanda,” she said.

 

“Dorian Pavus,” Dorian replied in surprised distraction, before adding incredulously, “Are you certain your absence will not be noticed?”

 

Vaanda scoffed. “I cannot move as freely as Sage, true, but I am a trained spy. I know what I am doing.”

 

“Former Ben-Hassrath?” Fenris asked, sounding both reproachful and awed.

 

“Fog Warrior,” Vaanda corrected pointedly, “Before I was captured and sold as a slave.”

 

Pain and regret flashed across Fenris’s face before he was able to school his expression back to neutral. Fenris had never spoken of it to him, but Dorian remembered the story about the Fog Warriors from _Tale of the Champion_ , although he had assumed until now that Varric had fabricated it, or at least embellished it beyond what was really true. Dorian chewed at the inside of his lip, wondering how he could broach that subject later.

 

Sage crossed her arms, her impatient frown pulling at the deep scar on her lip as she plopped heavily into the chair across from Fenris. “We can get to business now, no?”

 

“You’ve taken a great deal of risks just to speak with me,” Fenris said, eyes narrowed, “because you believe I can help you. But how can you be so certain?”

 

“Sage has told you of her dreams, has she not?” Vaanda replied, still standing just behind Sage as if guarding her.

 

“It has been the same dream every time I sleep for months,” Sage explained. “I am breaking the chains of slaves, and a wolf comes to lead them away to the south.”

 

“And you believe that wolf is me?”

 

“We _know_ it is you,” Vaanda interjected. “You are aware that the book about the Champion is extremely difficult to find in Tevinter? The Magisters like your Hawke for killing the Arishok, but you…” The smallest grin pulled at her lips. “They do not like you. And so the book is banned. Our master has been trying to get a copy for quite some time, and the morning it was finally delivered was the morning after Sage first had the dream.”

 

“It cannot be coincidence,” Sage added.

 

Fenris frowned, a crease forming between his brows.

 

“What I don’t understand,” Dorian said thoughtfully, “is that, if rumours are to be believed, your Vir Fen is having no trouble spiriting slaves away without Fenris’s help.”

 

Sage let out a heavy sigh, sinking back into her chair. “We take them from the masters easily, but we cannot take them from Minrathous.”

 

The crease between Fenris’s brows deepened. “You are having them go into hiding?”

 

“Yes,” Vaanda replied. “At an estate not unlike this one, left empty by an heirless magister who met his end in the south.”

 

Dorian’s eyes widened. “You can’t mean—”

 

“The rich and powerful of Tevinter are not so different from the rich and powerful of Orlais,” Sage said, a self-satisfied smirk pulling her lip upwards at the same angle as her scar. “They do not want property that does not bear association with their name, and so Magister Danarius’s large estate is left to rot.”

 

Fenris’s eyebrows rose in impressed surprise for just a moment, the conflicting emotions that swirled together inside him clear in the way his expression seemed to be at war with itself, before his eyes narrowed again and his face settled back into hard skepticism. “And you are unconcerned with how foolish a gamble that is?” he said, voice edged with irritation. “You have left these people in danger for months without truly knowing if you could find me, let alone that I would actually be able to help you.”

 

“We are not kidnappers,” Vaanda shot back, voice commanding. “Those who we have freed knew the risk. They are prepared to die, as long as they can die fighting to be free from their masters’ clutches.”

 

Fenris felt as if he had taken a blow to the chest. The fire drained from him. He was silent for a long moment. “I understand,” he said finally, voice low, eyes downcast.

 

Dorian tilted his head to meet Fenris’s gaze. “We _are_ going to help them, yes? Everything is already prepared on our end.”

 

Fenris gazed back at Dorian for just a moment, expression neutral save for the determination that blazed in his eyes, before turning back to the women before him. “I assume you have a plan to get them here?”

 

-

 

It was a slow process, agonizingly so, but it was working without a hitch.

 

Sage would bring the newly freed slaves to the empty Alexius estate whenever she could slip away from Magister Fulvius unnoticed, always under cover of night, never more than one or two people at a time. Fenris, often with the help of Orana, would lead them through the eluvians to Kirkwall. Orana would show them how to adjust – she understood what it meant to be a slave, could speak Tevene to those who struggled to speak Common under all the stress they felt, knew all the right things to say – while Merrill was there to help them start anew, aided by covert sums of money sent down from Viscount’s Keep or from a certain anonymous benefactor in the Frostback Mountains. Varania served as a contact, feeding the others information while her shop, now owned by her assistant, became a safehouse.

 

A small but steady stream of former slaves, so few that it would be a long time before any outside eye could make the connection, were disappearing from Tevinter and reappearing in the Free Marches as if by magic; joining the Kirkwall city guard, or being hired by the Viscount, or by the prince of Starkhaven, or being taken in by Dalish clans. A few of the elves simply left Kirkwall on their own without explanation, seeming to know exactly where they were going despite being in an unfamiliar place, as if drawn by some compulsion, some higher power.

 

It was all working perfectly. Even despite Dorian’s tendency to spend so much time hovering about uselessly at the Alexius estate, if only to be near Fenris. He was fully, painfully aware that the more time he spent there the more suspicious it looked, but he was always unable to tear himself away.

 

It was all working perfectly, and Fenris could not possibly feel more ill at ease.

 

-

 

The thick, white fog surrounded him, blanketing his surroundings so densely that it became everything – the air he breathed, the ground beneath his feet. He could recall, distantly, that it was almost like Seheron on hot and humid early summer mornings after a heavy rain, before the sun had a chance to burn away the heaviest of the fog that buried the jungle. But this was not Seheron.

 

This was a dream.

 

He knew; he could see the seams and stitches of the Fade, the way the edges began to unravel with the rays of pale morning light that streamed in from the waking world. He could feel his body lying in bed, but try as he might, he could not will it to move. It was as if an immense weight pinned him down in reality just as it did here, in the dream.

 

Six red eyes blazed down at him, one of the massive creature’s heavy paws planted firmly on his chest, pressing him into a floor that was not really there. The sharp points of its long claws scraped against the immaterial nothingness above his shoulders as it flexed its powerful muscles.

 

_Do not be afraid_ , the wolf said without speaking. _I am not here to harm you._

 

This was a dream.

 

The air was still as death, and yet the wolf’s fur moved as if tousled by a gentle breeze. The dark strands – perhaps not truly fur at all, but something ghostly and magical, dancing like smoke – seemed to draw in all light, until those six glowing eyes were all he could see.

 

_I am only here to… assure you_ , the wolf continued. _They know a wolf guides their path, though they are somewhat mistaken. But you are aware, are you not?_

 

_You are the one that came to the others in their dreams_ , he thought, his voice echoing in his mind as if he had spoken the words. _What manner of demon are you?_

 

_I suppose I should have known you would see me as such_. A mixture of impatience and pity shone from the wolf’s eyes, as if it regarded an ignorant child. _But surely you must see that I make no demands_.

 

_In that case, what do you want? If you are here to take credit, shouldn’t you be speaking to the others and not to me?_

 

A laugh rang out, surprised and pleased, the sound bouncing around in his mind. The wolf’s eyes seemed to soften, the blinding red fading into a softer hazel grey that felt oddly familiar.

 

_A fair point!_ The wolf’s feral features remained expressionless, but somehow he knew it was smiling. _That you are the key to the eluvians is something that I have allowed, for better or worse, because I knew it could be of mutual benefit. I must thank you – I feel quite reassured that I have not chosen poorly this time._

 

He narrowed his eyes, unafraid of the creature that loomed over him. _I cannot say I appreciate being used_.

 

_Few do_ , the wolf replied, sounding suddenly much less patient. _But you must ask yourself if that truly matters, when it benefits you as well_.

 

A fire flared in his chest, the burning will to fight back – but every protest that arose in his mind fell flat.

 

_As I said_ , the wolf declared haughtily. _At any rate, you will not remember this conversation once you wake up_. The wolf lifted its paw from his chest, though he still felt pinned to the spot until its nostrils flared and it let out a rush of hot breath over his face. It seemed to tear open the last remaining threads of the dream, and the floating floor of this ethereal world dropped out from beneath him and sent him tumbling back into reality.

 

As wakefulness began to take hold, the bright sunlight streaming in told Fenris that he was not in the dark cellar room that he usually kept to in order to stay hidden. Warmth pressed along the length of his side, the sound of shallow breathing just barely audible in the stillness. He sat up carefully, trying to stave off the pounding in his head. He was in the master bedroom. Dorian slept sprawled out beside him, naked save for the silk sheets that had become twisted around him in his fitful sleep.

 

Fenris cursed under his breath as he extracted himself from the tangle of limbs and bedclothes, careful not to wake Dorian, nearly stepping directly on one of several empty wine bottles on the floor.

 

That he’d let it happen once was a foolish mistake. That he’d let it happen again…

 

“Forgive me,” he whispered to Dorian’s sleeping form, grabbing up his discarded clothing and slipping out the door.


	14. Radiance

“Mae, it’s rare to see you this early in the morning,” Dorian said cheerfully as he rose from his seat in the study of his Minrathous home to greet her. But when he saw her expression, the grin faded from his face. “You look troubled.”

 

Maevaris marched past a row of small bookcases with purposeful steps, her lips twisting with the effort of fighting against a frown. “’Troubled’ is one word for it.” She halted on the other side of Dorian’s desk, pulled a sheet of parchment and a dagger coated in dried blood from a pouch at her hip, and slammed the items down onto the desk with more force than intended. “One of our Lucerni was found murdered this morning. Altus Vetruvius.”

 

“Murdered?” Dorian repeated. He sat carefully back down in his chair, studying the items on the desk before him as if in a daze.

 

The pommel of the dagger was emblazoned with the mark of the Antivan Crows, its blade formed in the long, slight curve of a dragon’s tooth, the edges where the thick layer of blood had flaked off as it dried gleaming impossibly sharp. It looked brand new, crafted for the purpose of killing its one and only target – an intimidation tactic. Blood had been flung across the sheet of parchment in a wide arc, and just barely discernible beneath the deep red were the words “ _The Tevinter Imperium shall not bend._ ”

 

“The Venatori?” Dorian asked, although he knew the answer.

 

“We’ve apparently become a threat,” Maevaris said.

 

Dorian frowned, glancing up to meet Mae’s eyes. “What should we do about it?”

 

“Sleep with one eye open?” Mae shrugged. “What _can_ we do? It was a bold move, and an unfortunate loss, but still intended to frighten us. If we fight back too directly, we lower ourselves to their level. If we lay low, we allow them to win.”

 

“So we, what? Pretend as if this never happened?” Dorian asked incredulously.

 

Mae shook her head, leaning on the desk. “No. First, we make a fuss about it in the Magisterium, which will hopefully dwindle the Venatori’s support by casting them even more as fringe extremists. Then, we simply keep working as we have been.”

 

Dorian sighed. “Success is the best revenge, I suppose.”

 

“Exactly,” Mae said. “But it won’t do to be reckless. I –”

 

A knock rang out from the study door, and Dorian and Mae, both feeling more on edge than they had realized, started at the sound.

 

“Excuse me, Magisters,” a servant called as he cracked open the door, “But Apprentice Varania is here for her lesson.”

 

“Of course,” Dorian said. “Please show her in.”

 

Mae snatched up the parchment and dagger from the desk and stuffed them hurriedly back into her bag with a choked whisper of, “ _After her lesson_ ,” as the servant bowed out. Varania stepped inside a moment later with an armful of books on magical theory, gaze flitting nervously between Dorian and Mae, mouth opening and shutting once with uncertainty.

 

“Varania, I have been just dying to meet you,” Mae said, stepping forward with a dazzling smile. “Dorian tells me you’re a fantastic pupil. And, oh, you have such beautiful hair, too!”

 

Varania’s face flushed as red as her hair, and she adjusted her grip on her books as if she wanted to hide behind them. “Th-thank you, Magister Tilani,” she choked out.

 

“Please, call me Mae,” she said, gently taking the stack of books from Varania’s hands and setting them aside. “We’re nearly the same rank anyway, my dear, and any friend of Dorian’s is a friend of mine.”

 

“Of course, Magist-” Varania shook her head, and hesitantly corrected herself, “Mae.”

 

Mae smiled and cast her gaze back to Dorian. “I wonder, could I observe the lesson today?”

 

Varania’s eyes widened to the size of dinner plates.

 

“Maevaris Tilani, you are intimidating my apprentice,” Dorian chided good-naturedly.

 

“No, I would be honoured by Magist-” Varania shook her head again. “-by Mae’s presence.”

 

Mae clapped her hands together. “Please, let us begin, then,” she said, taking a seat.

 

Dorian made a show of sighing and shaking his head, though a grin was playing across his face. “We’ve predominately been studying theory up until now,” he said, largely for Mae’s benefit as he tried to ignore how positively gleeful she looked. “Today I’d like to try applying what you’ve learned, combined with what you knew before.”

 

Varania, who had been about to grab her parchment and pen to take notes, instead left them on the desk and stepped into the center of the room with Dorian. She gave a studious nod. “My knowledge from before is… extremely limited,” she said, lips curving into a small frown. “Slaves are only taught the basics of how to keep their magic under control, and whatever practical spells they may need. I mostly did washing and mending, so I never had to learn much.”

 

“You know how to conjure fire though, correct?” Dorian asked.

 

“Yes.”

 

A small table lined with candles stood against one wall of the study, and Dorian hurried over to pull it into the middle of the floor, as far away from any books or curtains as possible. He arranged the candles into a straight line, seven in total.

 

“I just want to gauge your abilities so we know where to start,” he said, stepping back. “From where you’re standing, could you light these candles one by one, from left to right?”

 

Varania nodded, then took a breath, concentration written over her face. Dorian was expecting the type of controlled-yet-sloppy bursts of smoky fire of a reasonably talented but untrained mage, but instead, Varania summoned a tiny, precise pinpoint of flame that traveled unwavering from candle to candle. The little flame was a rather weak spell, but Varania manipulated it through the air as if threading a needle, correcting easily for the differences in height between newer and more heavily used candles.

 

Dorian gave a blink in surprise, his eyebrows raising. A quick glance at Mae showed stunned approval similarly written across her face.

 

When the seventh and final candle was lit the spell disappeared instantly. Varania turned back with a nervous flutter in her posture. “Was that acceptable?”

 

“More than acceptable,” Dorian replied, still feeling stunned. “Your magic isn’t particularly powerful, but your precision is… incredible, frankly.”

 

“Being a tailor is all about detail work,” Mae added with an impressed nod of her head.

 

Varania flushed bright red again. “I-I’m glad you approve.”

 

Dorian began to pace with excited energy. “This is definitely a strength that we can work with. We can focus on disciplines that refine that strength, and...” He paused, chewing at his lip thoughtfully. “What schools of magic require the most precision?”

 

“Healing, for one,” Mae said, and leaned forward in her seat. “I don’t imagine they taught you any creation magic, did they?”

 

“No, but...” Varania paused as if she was about to confess a deeply held secret. “I know a few basic healing spells.”

 

Dorian’s brows furrowed. “But where did-” he blurted without thinking, but quickly shut his mouth. “You don’t have to answer that.”

 

“No, it’s ok,” Varania said. She took a deep breath, eyes trained steadily on the floor. “My mother died from an illness. At the time I had worked to get as much money as I could, but no healer I found was willing to help a _liberati_ slave. So I stole a book from one of them. I’d learned to read a little, and I thought maybe if I tried hard enough, that maybe I could...”

 

Mae hurried to Varania’s side, resting a soothing hand on her shoulder and tilting her head to meet Varania’s gaze, her eyes brimming with understanding. “That was very brave of you,” she said, tucking a loose strand of hair behind Varania’s ear. “And it gives us a foundation to build upon.”

 

Varania gave Mae a determined nod.

 

“What about spirit healing?” Mae said, and glanced over at Dorian. “I understand that at the most basic theoretical level it’s actually not so different from necromancy. Which means you also have a foundation to learn along with her, Dorian.”

 

“True,” Dorian replied. “You know, I remember Alexius having quite a few books on spirit healing in his library.” He thought for a moment, and then gave a shrug. “Why not? I know I could stand to learn some decent healing magic.”

 

“I would like that,” Varania said.

 

“Then it’s settled.” Mae gave Varania’s shoulder a gentle pat. “Why don’t we go take a look at those books now? I have time.”

 

-

 

When they arrived at the Alexius estate, Dorian was relieved to see that Fenris did not seem to be there. They had hardly seen each other over the past few weeks – because Dorian’s responsibilities were drawing him to other places and _not_ at all because he was trying to avoid Fenris – and when they did cross paths their interactions were awkward and distant, perhaps even a bit cold. And as much as Dorian loved Mae and Varania, the thought of them witnessing that, and the uncomfortable questions he might have to answer if they did, made his stomach turn.

 

Perhaps studying spirit healing with Varania would be even more beneficial than he had initially thought. It would provide a productive distraction. He could immerse himself in research and practice, an environment where he thrived, with Varania, who was quick and agreeable to work with – rather than focusing his every idle minute wondering how he could salvage whatever relationship he had left with Fenris.

 

The thought didn’t lighten the burden he felt on his shoulders in the least, as he had hoped it would, but it did make him eager to begin, if only to divert his thoughts to anything else.

 

Most of the library’s furniture was still draped in dust cloths, save one heavy rosewood desk and two chairs that Dorian and Fenris had been using when they had free time here. Dorian frowned. This place felt much too full of ghosts, crowded and stifling with bittersweet memories that ached in his chest and constricted in his throat if he thought about them too much.

 

“Let’s just find the books we need and take them back to my estate,” Dorian said. “This place is too drafty.”

 

A lie.

 

“I agree,” Mae replied, sounding much less like she agreed and more like she was simply content to leave it be.

 

“Do you know where he kept them?” Varania asked.

 

“Check that shelf to the right of the door,” Dorian replied. “They’ll either be there, or over here...”

 

Dorian started for a shelf at the far wall, when suddenly a dark blur rushed into the edge of his vision from behind a large covered desk. Before he had time to react, a figure dressed in deep grey was in front of him, and a sharp, searing, indescribable pain was spreading in seizing waves throughout his entire body from a focus point in his chest. His knees buckled and he began to fall, but the figure caught him in his arms. Frigid ice-blue eyes gazed out at him from beneath a black Orlesian mask.

 

The world around Dorian was expanding and contracting, swaying like seaweed, his head heavy and hearing dulled as if water had rushed into his ears. Distantly, somewhere, Varania and Mae were shouting his name.

 

“The Imperium will rise again,” the figure hissed, devoid of emotion. “A gift of the Venatori.”

 

And with that, the man let go, and Dorian crumpled to the floor.

 

He slammed into the ground at the exact moment a powerful lightning spell made impact somewhere nearby, static crackling through the air. His senses were ebbing away, his vision blurry, body numb. Shouting all around him, one familiar voice standing out above the others, the sounds of battle. A flash of blue-white light washing over him, bringing the airless stillness of the Fade with it.

 

_Fenris_ _is here_ , he thought.

 

And his consciousness slipped away.

 


	15. Shapeless Worlds and Airless Skies

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please forgive me for being the kind of monster who would leave a story on a cliffhanger like that for such a long time................

Something was wrong.

 

Fenris knew the moment he pushed through the eluvian and into that dark basement room of the Alexius estate, despite not having been back there for weeks. It was nothing concrete – just a sensation like the heaviness of the air right before a storm, as if the sky itself was about to shatter.

 

And then it happened. Muffled shouting echoed from somewhere on the main floor, just barely audible through distance and walls. Women’s voices: one he didn’t recognize, and – Varania. Fenris broke into a sprint, leaping up the narrow stairs two at a time, running blindly to the source of the sounds.

 

An overwhelming wave of powerful magic exploded through the air as he reached the servants’ door to the library, searing through his markings in a rush of white-hot pain as if the usual discomfort he felt around magic had been magnified hundreds of times over. His knees buckled.

 

“Dorian!” Varania shrieked from inside the library.

 

Fenris grit his teeth hard, his hands shooting out to grab the doorframe as if of their own accord. He sent himself bursting through the door using the momentum from his fall.

 

Static and violet-tinted light filled the room from a massive lightning spell that held a man in an Orlesian mask paralyzed where he stood, frozen mid-step as he had been running for the back door. A woman with blonde curls that Fenris did not recognize was maintaining the spell, her jaw clenched and eyes squeezed narrow, sweat beading on her brow with the strain. Varania stood just behind her in the stance of someone ready to leap to action but at a loss for what to do. Dorian lay in an awkward heap on the floor, his back to Fenris.

 

The blonde woman met Fenris’s gaze from across the room with a boiling intensity in her eyes, and, seemingly satisfied that Fenris understood, allowed her hold on the spell to slip.

 

The lightning disappeared in an instant, and Fenris surged forward, his mind devoid of everything save the instinct to protect. To destroy that which threatened. A scream of effort tore from his throat as his marking burst into light. The assassin didn’t even have a chance to move before Fenris plunged his arm into the man’s chest, re-materializing for just an instant as his gauntlets sank into the muscle of his heart, ripping him apart from the inside out as he pulled his hand back.

 

The corpse hadn’t even hit the floor before Fenris was rushing to Dorian’s side.

 

“He was stabbed in the chest,” the blonde woman called urgently as she and Varania ran to meet them.

 

Fenris was already tearing at Dorian’s robes to expose the wound, ripping the blood-soaked silk and pushing it aside to reveal a single, deep puncture on the right side of his chest.

 

“It shouldn’t be fatal, there,” Varania said, urgently but timidly. “But –”

 

“Where is the knife?” Fenris asked frantically, eyes darting around the floor.

 

“Here, and over there,” came a voice from behind them. Their heads all snapped up with a start to where Sage was suddenly standing over the assassin’s corpse, bending over to pluck something up from the floor near the man’s outstretched hand. None of them had noticed her arrival.

 

She held up the hilt of a dagger and twirled it between her fingers. “The hilt is here; the blade is still in the wound,” she explained. “I hear it’s an old trick of the House of Repose. The poison on the blade enters the blood slowly, but if the blade cannot be removed from the body –” She pressed a mechanism on the side of the hilt with a quiet click that seemed to echo through the stillness of the room. “– then there is no problem.”

 

The blonde woman furrowed her brow. “So, we just need to get it out?”

 

Sage shot back a humourless smirk, the scar above her mouth pulling her lips into a sneer. “Yes. Quickly.”

 

The information did nothing to quell the frantic pounding of Fenris’s heart in his throat. “Get him to a healer,” he demanded. “Someone could–”

 

“I said _quickly_ ,” Sage interrupted, dropping heavily into a chair and stretching out casually as if none of this was any of her concern.

 

Fenris’s eyes darted away from her in irritation, to the blonde women who was looking at him expectantly, to Varania who watched him with her brow furrowed in sorrowful sympathy.

 

“No,” Fenris breathed, leaning back from Dorian’s prone form as if he could just pretend it wasn’t happening. The words began to spill out of him in a torrent, “I… I cannot control them as I once could. The markings…. If I lose control, they could… _I_ could kill him. I cannot risk that. I cannot…” His eyes trailed down to his hands, sickened at the sight of the blue-white lines tracing up his fingers.

 

“How much time do we have?” the blonde woman asked.

 

“You don’t,” Sage replied, the self-satisfaction now gone from her voice, replaced by something thin and anxious. “It works slowly, but once enough of it is within his blood…”

 

Fenris grit his teeth so hard it hurt. Varania tilted her head to meet her brother’s gaze. She was silent, but the depth swirling in her eyes spoke of encouragement, of trust Fenris thought he would never see from her again outside of his fractured memories.

 

He had to do this. He was the only one who could.

 

He moved closer to Dorian’s side, removing his gauntlets and dropping them to the floor with a clang, deafening in the oppressive silence.

 

“Let’s give him some space,” the blond woman said quietly as she stood and placed a gentle hand on Varania’s shoulder, guiding her away.

 

Time moved slowly, hanging thick in the air, heavy in Fenris’s throat. He tried to take a deep breath, though his chest wouldn’t expand like it should have.

 

_There is no room for mistakes_.

 

He drew another insufficient breath – and on the exhale, tensed every muscle in his body, tight and controlled. A strained, choked sound pushed from his throat as he forced his lyrium to burst unsteadily into light, and phased his fingers into Dorian’s chest.

 

Time seemed to stop. The blade was there, deeper than he had imagined – he could feel the chill of cold metal as his fingertips passed through it, immaterial. He bit his lip hard enough to draw blood as he reluctantly pushed deeper. Sweat stung his eyes. Carefully, he found his grip on the edges of the blade and began to draw it out.

 

Dorian twitched, a groan pushing past his lips. Fenris’s heart leapt into his throat. He yanked his hand back in a panic, his control faltering for just a moment – just long enough for his lyrium to flicker out.

 

A scream caught in his throat. The colour seemed to drain from the world around him, sounds muffled, his awareness dampened. He instinctually flung the knife blade somewhere away from him, leaving a trail of deep red spattered over the dusty floor.

 

Deep red. It thrummed in his ears, drowning everything else out. It coated his fingertips, running in thick streams into his shaking palm. The world began to crumble and fall away around him.

 

Until a warm weight resting on his shoulder pulled him back to the present.

 

The blonde woman knelt beside him with a careful hand on his shoulder, the barest hint of a smile on her face, reassuring and thankful. “You did it,” she said. “A little hiccup at the end, but it’s nothing our Varania can’t fix.”

 

Her words sunk in slowly, but once Fenris understood he jerked his head up, nearly launching himself forward with the suddenness of the movement, to see Varania at Dorian’s side with the warm glow of healing magic in the palms of her hands. Her brow was furrowed in concentration, but otherwise she looked calm. The tension wound tight into Fenris’s body released all at once, and he fell back to sit heavily on the floor.

 

Sage gave a humph from somewhere behind them. “I suppose I needn’t have doubted,” she said curtly.

 

“You just tore some skin, brother. A surgeon would have done more damage,” Varania said as the spell dissolved from her hands. “I believe we should take him to a proper healer to be certain, but I don’t notice any effects from the poison.”

 

The blonde woman gave a relieved laugh. “Good to know our Dorian isn’t as delicate as he looks!” She reached into the corseted bodice of her dress, pulled out a sky-blue handkerchief, and wordlessly offered it to Fenris.

 

Fenris eyed it with suspicion.

 

She sighed. “To clean your hands before you help me carry him to a bed,” she explained.

 

Reluctantly, Fenris took the cloth, noticing a little _M.T._ embroidered with fancy silver threads in one corner as he began to wipe Dorian’s blood from his hands.

 

“Ah,” he said without looking up, “You are Maevaris Tilani.”

 

A boisterous laugh bubbled up from Mae’s chest at his audacity in addressing her. “How refreshing to drop the titles!” she said, and meant it. “Just Mae is fine for you, if you’d like. It’s a pleasure to finally meet you, Fenris, even under such dire circumstances. Dorian has told me… virtually nothing about you.”

 

_Good_ , he thought, trying to force himself to feel more disgust for this woman – this _magister_ – than he did, but something about her undeniably earned his respect.

 

“Dorian’s bedroom is upstairs,” Fenris stated as aloofly as he could manage, discarding the handkerchief on the floor and pushing himself to his feet.

 

Mae gave a nod. “Then let us make haste for now. I’ll send for a healer and the authorities once we’ve gotten him comfortable and you’ve had time to leave and cover your tracks.”

 

Fenris took a moment to take in the scene around him. Streaks of blood criss-crossing the floor, drying slowly in the humid Minrathous air. The would-be assassin’s body splayed out, surrounded by blackened scorch marks from the forceful static cage spell, his face frozen beneath his mask in his last moments of terror and agony. And Dorian, boneless and relaxed on the ground almost as if he was simply napping peacefully, save for the blood that stained his freshly-scarred skin and torn clothing.

 

_Fool_ , Fenris thought, biting back a relieved smile.


End file.
